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Pat* Flung Mike Headlong into the Water 


[Page 168] 



I 

THE SECRET OF 
HALLOWDENE FARM 


BY 

DORIS POGOGK/ 



D. APPLETON AND GOMPANY 
NEW YORK > Jit Jft MCMXXIV 




COPYHIOHT, 1924, BY 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


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PBINTED IN THB UNITED STATES OP AMBBICA 


APR -5 '24 ^ 

©C1A777823S^ 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I. The Parting of the Ways .... 1 

II. Realization.10 

III. Town Mouse and Country Mice . . 18 

IV. Carrying On.28 

V. Disaster.38 

VI. The Ordeal.44 

VII. Distinguished Service.55 

VIII. A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing . . 67 

IX. Pat.73 

X. “Needs Must, When-—“ .... 84 

XI. A Strange Adventure.94 

XII. With the Best Intentions . . . . 107 

XIII. Consequences Dire!.119 

XIV. Giant Despair.126 

XV. A Riddle Read . . . ... . 133 

XVI. An Explanation and a Compact . . 141 

XVII. More Mystery.153 

XVIII. Battle Royal.161 














CONTENTS 


CHAFTZK PAGE 

XIX. A Sympathetic Ear . ... . . 172 

XX. Deep Waters. 179 

XXI. *‘SiNG A Song of Sixpence!’" . . . 191 

XXII. Disillusionment.201 

XXIII. A Real Rescue.212 

XXIV. Fruits of Victory.220 

XXV. The Telephone Call. 227 

XXVI. Our Special Correspondent . . . 234 







THE SECRET OF 
HALLOWDENE FARM 





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THE SECRET OF 
HALLOWDENE FARM 


CHAPTER I 

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 

I WISH you were coming with me!” 

‘‘Oh, I do wish you were coming with 
me!” 

Chris Gilmour and Gypsy Delamere, seated 
facing each other in opposite corners of a rail¬ 
way carriage, uttered the exclamation simul¬ 
taneously, and, finding that they had spoken 
the same words at the same moment, at once 
leant towards each other to “link little fingers 
and wish”—a superstitious habit. 

“We’d better stick to wishing—what we did 
wish,” suggested Gypsy, a fair-haired, lively 
looking schoolgirl of about fourteen. “Then 
perhaps it’ll come true!” 

“But it couldn’t come true for both of us,” 
1 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Chris, her chum, pointed out laughingly, “be¬ 
cause if you got your wish about taking me 
back to school with you, I couldn't get mine 
about your coming with me into Devonshire, 
to stay on the farm!” 

“Which would you rather do, if you could 
choose,” Gypsy inquired—“get out at Wyn- 
garth and go back to school for the term, or go 
on into the country for this holiday?” 

Chris’s piquant, expressive face grew 
thoughtful. “I—don’t know,” she said hesitat¬ 
ingly. “I’m pulled both ways at once. On 
one side, it’s perfectly maddening (just be¬ 
cause Dad says, being a doctor, that the funny 
way I acted up this last holidays showed I 
ought to knock off lessons for a bit) to be 
snatched away from school just when-” 

“When you were rushing up it like a regu¬ 
lar meteor, you old Comet!” said Gypsy flat¬ 
teringly. 

“When everything was so specially inter¬ 
esting, and I’d just been made Head of the 
Middle School, and was hoping for the English 
prize and all that,” Chris substituted, blushing 
2 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 


slightly nevertheless, for she knew quite well 
that her general school nickname of “Comet” 
was a highly complimentary one. “It’s 
‘Checkmate!’ just when I was in the swing of 
everything and trying to go full steam ahead, 
and the school half of me simply hates it.” 

“Well, you can’t hate it more than I do,” 
said Gypsy ruefully. “We’ve always been 
such chums, and shared everything since our 
first day at Wyngarth, and I shall feel simply 
lost all this term without you.” 

“Dear old thing, you can’t miss me more 
than I shall miss you^ Chris responded, giving 
her hand a squeeze. “We must write to each 
other a lot, that’s all, and you must tell me all 
about what’s going on at Wyngarth, and I’ll 
tell you all about my queer adventure. For it 
is a big adventure. Gyp, there’s no getting over 
that—this plunge into the depths of the coun¬ 
try, for several months, to live a perfectly new 
sort of life, on a farm, with people I don’t know 
—^though I must say the middle of January is 
not the time of year I would have chosen for 
it!” 


3 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

“Still, in spite of that, and missing school, 
you can’t help rather liking it just because it 
is such an adventure!” Gypsy suggested. 

“Yes, in a way, though it’s a rather shivery, 
half-scared way, like standing on the diving- 
board preparing to jump into cold water,” 
Chris returned, her bright brown eyes agleam 
with excitement. “But, of course, whether I 
go on liking it or not after I’m there depends 
mostly on how I get on with my unknown 
cousins.” 

“Why are you being sent to stay with them, 
if you don’t know them?” 

“Well, because my people didn’t exactly 
know what else to do with me! You see. Dad 
wanted me to ‘run wild in the country,’ as he 
said, but as he couldn’t leave his London prac¬ 
tice and Mumsie couldn’t leave hirrij it was 
rather a deadlock until they thought of writing 
to Uncle Roger, who’s a ‘gentleman-farmer’ 
down in Devonshire, and asking him to take 
me in as a sort of refugee and paying guest. 
It’s not him I’m bothering about—he’s just an 
uncle, too old to count—and my aunt died 
4 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 


years ago; it’s the young part of the family— 
my cousins—I’m so awfully anxious to see.” 

‘‘How many are there?” 

“Two, now; there used to be three once, but 
the eldest son, Clive, was drowned, not very 
long ago, in a shipwreck—frightfully sad; he 
was only about twenty; the two left now are 
a boy and girl—the girl, Molly, rather older 
than me, and the boy, Pat, only about my age, 
so I can’t think why he isn’t still at school.” 

“P’r’aps he was sacked!” suggested Gypsy 
luridly. 

“No, he wasn’t, you old scandalmonger!” 
laughed Chris. “I know that much about him 
anyhow; in fact, I know he was awfully bril¬ 
liant at school, and doing frightfully well 
there.” 

“Then he’s a dig, I suppose,” said Gypsy, 
with some contempt. “You know the sort of 
boy—very pallid and inky, with lank hair and 
a bulging forehead and big round specs., who 
hates games and-” 

“Well, I’d rather he was even like that, than 
the ‘haw-haw,’ would-be-grown-up kind of boy 
5 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
—^that’s the type I can’t stand,” Chris inter¬ 
rupted. “But I don’t somehow imagine him 
either sort; I picture him more of a kind of 
masculine edition of a photograph I’ve seen of 
Molly, and she looks simply the essence of 
placid, round-faced, cushiony good temper.” 

“Sounds easy enough to get on with,” Gypsy 
commented. 

“Ye—es,” Chris assented a trifle dubiously; 
“only, between you and me. Gyp, I wish she 
looked a bit more interesting! You see, it’s 
Molly who’s bound to make all the difference 
to me. Pat doesn’t matter half so acutely—I 
don’t suppose I shall have much to do with 
him, as he’s a boy—^but Molly, as the only girl 
there, will be simply vital!” 

At that point a station flashed past, and 
Gypsy, springing to her feet and snatching her 
bag and hockey-stick from the rack, exclaimed, 
“Pondsbury—next station Wyngarth! I 
didn’t know we were so close. Well, I’m glad 
we’ve been able to travel as far as this together, 
anyhow—it was lucky happening to go on the 
6 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 


same line. Good-bye, dear old girl, and good 
luck!” 

“Same to you!” responded Chris, giving her 
friend a hasty hug. “Mind you write often! 
You know my address, don’t you?—‘Hallow- 
dene Farm, Torfell Combe, near Dunster, 
North Devon.’ Good-bye! I can’t believe I’m 
not getting out here with you, and going back 
for the term!” 

She stood at the window, after Gypsy had 
made her exit, leaning out eagerly; a good 
many other Wyngarth girls, wearing the fa¬ 
miliar school ribbon, were also alighting at the 
well-known station, and most of them came 
crowding up to her compartment—for Chris 
was a favourite. 

“Hallo, Chris! Good-bye, Comet! Good 
luck, old girl! Mind you write! Wish you 
were coming back!” they cried. 

“So do I! Hope I shall next term. li 
seems too absurd to be going through this sta¬ 
tion instead of getting out,” Chris responded. 
“I do feel such an exile! So long, all of you! 
Good-bye, Gyp! Good-bye!” 

7 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


The call of Wyngarth was strong upon 
her just then, and she almost wished that she 
had not, for the sake of travelhng half-way 
with Gypsy, arranged to go for her visit on 
the day the term began; she felt “homesick 
for school,’’ as she expressed it to herself— 
craving to get out of the train and go back, 
with that jolly crowd of old comrades, to the 
familiar classrooms, dormitories, and playing- 
fields, and the full, sociable, strenuous life she 
knew and excelled in. 

But when the train had remorselessly swept 
on, and the familiar place and well-known 
faces had been left behind, the charm of ad¬ 
venture and novelty began to reassert itself, 
and Chris’s spirits to revive. For, after all, 
this too that she was doing was Life of a 
different kind—^this speeding away by herself 
into the unknown, to new friends, and new 
experiences, and months of freedom! 

The old interest and excitement repos¬ 
sessed her, and she sat watching the flying 
landscape, growing ever more beautiful and 
striking. At length the train slackened to a 
8 


THE PAKTING OF THE WAYS 


halt, and Chris, glancing out at the station 
signboard, started to her feet. 

“Torfell Combe!” she gasped. 

She seized her belongings and sprang out 
on to the platform of the little wind-swept 
wayside station. 

“Excuse me,” said a voice at her shoulder, 
“but are you Christabel Gilmour?” 


CHAPTER II 


REALIZATION 

C HRIS started round and found herself 
looking up at a boy, of eighteen or 
thereabouts as she judged, in the 
roughest of well-worn country clothes, who 
stood head and shoulders over her, lifting a 
battered old felt hat and looking down at her 
with rather striking grey eyes deep set in a 
thin, sunburnt face, with a half-shy smile she 
instinctively liked. 

“Whoever’s this?—looks too shabby to be 
a Gilmour and too much of a gentleman to be 
just one of the farm-hands,” flashed through 
Chris’s mind as she said aloud, “Yes, I’m Chris 
Gilmour. And you—are you somebody from 
‘Hallowdene’?” 

The unknown held out his hand. “I’m Pat 
Gilmour,” he said, and added rather awk- 
10 


REALIZATION 

wardly, “Awf’ly glad to see you, Cousin Chris- 
tabel.” 

Chris experienced a shock. A preconceived 
picture of Pat, which she had founded mainly 
on that photograph of Molly, as a round-faced, 
roly-poly, hobbledehoy schoolboy, had to be 
hastily reconstructed, for it bore no resem¬ 
blance whatever to this lean, long-limbed per¬ 
son with the keen, clever face and general air 
of being years older than his actual age. 

“That your luggage?” Pat inquired, and on 
her assenting, proceeded to swing the heavy 
box up on his broad shoulders with the dex¬ 
terity of a railway porter. 

“That’s all right—there’s no porter handy, 
and we get used to doing things for ourselves 
here; besides, it’s no weight to speak of,” he 
assured Chris as she protested. “Molly’s sorry 
she couldn’t come and meet you, but she had 
an awful lot to do at home, and besides, we 
didn’t know how much luggage you would be 
bringing, or whether there would be room for 
more than two people as well in the cart; not 
but what I could have walked, of course, but 
11 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

Molly isn’t very keen on driving Pegasus, as 
he’s rather restive sometimes.” He nodded 
towards the horse and cart waiting outside the 
station, and added, flushing, “ ’Fraid it’s a bit 
primitive. Hope you don’t mind?” 

In truth the small open trap was little better 
than a farm-cart and, incidentally, badly in 
want of painting; but to Chris’s mind its sim- 
pHcity was in keeping with the adventure, so 
she answered valiantly, “Of course not, I love 
it,” and was conscious of approval as she 
mounted to her seat, by the help of the wheel, 
with an ease born of much practice in the 
Wyngarth gymnasium. Pat heaved her box 
and bags into the cart, and, climbing up beside 
her, took the reins into what Chris thankfully 
felt—remembering his casual reference to the 
ways of “Pegasus”—were experienced hands, 
and they swung off down the deep Devonshire 
lane. 

And then an awful silence fell upon them. 
Chris, struggling with an oncoming wave of 
shyness, was aware that her cousin was suffer¬ 
ing even more acutely than she was herself; 

12 


REALIZATION 


she knew that he was hunting desperately for 
something to say to her, and felt her own 
mind a blank. 

At last Pat said with a jerk, “Hope you’re 
not awfully fagged after the journey?” 

“Not a bit, thank you.” Pause. Then 
Chris, “You’ve got lovely country here, 
haven’t you?” 

“H’m—very jolly.” 

Prolonged pause. Then Chris again, “It’s 
been very cold lately, hasn’t it?” (“Oh, you 
fatuous idiot!—can’t you do better than 
weatherV’ she added fiercely to herself.) 

“Er—yes,” Pat admitted. 

There followed an excruciating pause; then 
Pat said, his voice stilted with shyness, “If 
you feel cold. Cousin Christabel, there’s a rug 
under the seat.” 

In sheer desperation Chris broke down the 
barrier. “I don’t want it, thanks. But look 
here—Cousin Patrick—I’m not ‘Cousin Chris- 
tabel’; I’m just Chris—^unless you’d rather 
call me ‘Comet,’ which is my nickname at 
Wyngarth,” she said. 


13 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

That broke a layer of the ice; a twinkle 
came into Pat’s eyes. “Right-o! But I’m not 
‘Cousin Patrick’; I’m just Pat—unless you’d 
rather call me ‘Rags,’ as they do at Rugby,” 
he responded. 

They both laughed, feeling much more at 
ease, and Chris was about to say something 
natural, when the hoot of a motor was heard, 
and a car came bearing down upon them. 

The lane was wide, and had the motor 
swerved aside there would have been plenty of 
room for the two conveyances to pass each 
other comfortably; but instead of doing so it 
swept on, headlong, heedless, in the middle 
of the road, forcing Pat to pull the cart almost 
into the ditch. Even so the car tore past at 
perilously close quarters, scraping its mud¬ 
guard against the cart-wheel; and the driver, a 
stout, middle-aged man in a fur coat, turned in 
his seat and shouted back something offensive, 
as though the fault had been the Gilmours’. 

“Disgusting road-hog!” exclaimed Chris 
indignantly. 


14 


REALIZATIOlSr 


“He generally does drive like that,” Pat 
answered in an odd, suppressed voice. 

Chris glanced at him, noting his set mouth 
and the smouldering fire in his eyes, and asked 
inquisitively, “Who is he?” 

“Squire Broughton—our nearest neighbour; 
his land joins ours,” Pat responded in the 
same dry, bitter tone. 

Chris looked at her cousin’s grim face, and 
drew her own conclusions. “Unless I’m might¬ 
ily mistaken,” she thought, “there’s war, red 
war and deadly feud, between the Broughtons 
and the Gilmours; and if there is, I know jolly 
well whose side Fm on!” 

Then, before she could either change the 
topic or pursue it, Pat pointed ahead with his 
whip and said, “There—^that’s home.” 

Chris looked, and gave a little eager cry of 
delight. The weather was cold and frosty, with 
a light sprinkling of dry snow, the sun was at 
that moment setting in burnished, wintry red, 
and the quiet, white world of fast-gathering 
shadows and dully glowing sky made a striking 
background for “Hallowdene” as they drove 
15 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

into the open and turned a corner and it burst 
upon them. 

Many times had Chris pictured the old 
farmhouse to herself as she fancied it would 
be, but she was instantly aware that the reality 
surpassed her highest expectations; her town- 
bred fancy had been unable fully to grasp the 
amazing lovableness of an age-old country 
home. But her inborn country-love was only 
starved, not spoiled, and now, little town 
mouse as she was, she half rose excitedly in 
her seat, drinking in with sparkling eyes the 
beauty of mellow red brick, creeper-clad, of 
weather-beaten tiles quaintly gabled and 
touched with brilliant lichens, of latticed win¬ 
dows and deep inviting porch, of flagged, 
moss-grown paths and stiff box hedges, and 
beyond, only half-seen at that first glance, 
barns and ricks and great gnarled trees, and 
high garden walls of infinite suggestiveness. 
A glorious old house, and in its highest and 
inmost sense a home. 

“What it must be in summer,” Chris 
breathed—“what it is^ even nowl” 

16 


REALIZATION 


“Glad you like it,” said Pat briefly; but 
there was that in his tone which spoke infinitely 
more than the almost curt words. 

Chris, as he helped her down from the cart, 
upturned her vivid, glowing face towards him. 
“Oh, Pat,” she said, “how simply ripping for 
you to have a home like that! It’s been in 
your family for ages and ages, hasn’t it?” 

Pat nodded, looking, not at her, but at the 
old house. “Yes,” he said, “and it will be, for 
ages yet. ‘Hallowdene’ is going on belonging 
to the Gilmours,” and there was in his voice a 
note of grim purpose which Chris could not 
understand. 

But she had no time to dwell upon it or 
wonder, for at that moment a clamour of 
barking broke out, and a couple of sheep-dogs 
came rushing up with noise and commotion 
enough for half a dozen; and at the same in¬ 
stant the porch door opened and a fair-haired 
girl of about sixteen ran out, and up to Chris, 
crying as she kissed her, “Oh, Chrissie dear! 
I’m Molly, and I arn> sp glad you’ve come!” 


CHAPTER III 


TOWN MOUSE AND COUNTRY MICE 

HERE was nothing of Pat’s shy 
constraint about Molly; indeed, she 
bore remarkably little resemblance to 
him in any way, and Chris, looking at her 
cousin’s round, rosy face, with the soft blue 
eyes, snub nose, and dimpled mouth, found it 
hard to believe them brother and sister, and 
did not wonder that she had failed to con¬ 
struct an accurate mental picture of Pat from 
seeing Molly’s photograph. But as she found 
herself hastened into the house with Molly’s 
arm about her and Molly’s bright voice chat¬ 
tering inquiries about her health and her 
family and her journey and assurances as to 
the harmlessness of the dogs and the warmth 
of her welcome, she felt surprisingly at home, 
and comfortably convinced that she would find 
this cousin, at all events, very easy to get on 
18 


TOWN MOUSE—COUNTRY MICE 
with, even while she caught herself instinctively 
“placing” Molly among the other girls she 
knew, and saying to herself, “I should say, if 
this girl were at Wyngarth, she’d get on 
awfully well with everybody, but she wouldn’t 
be in the interesting set.” 

“Welcome!” cried a voice as Chris crossed 
the threshold. “ Welcome 1 welcome!” 

The words were encouraging, but what 
startled Chris was the extraordinary quality 
of the hoarse, guttural voice in which they were 
uttered; she started and stared round, and 
Molly burst out laughing. 

“It’s the parrot!” she explained, pointing 
to a cage on the table, “and it was nice of him 
to say that just at the right moment; Pat and 
I have had such work teaching him, calling 
out ‘Welcome!’ to each other whenever we 
entered the room where the parrot was, so 
that he would associate the word with people 
coming in.” 

“You are particularly requested, Chris,” 
said Pat’s voice behind them, “to refrain from 
addressing the parrot as ‘Pretty Poll’ and 
19 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

beseeching it to ‘put the kettle on’ or going 
through any formalities of that sort; we’re 
giving it a sound modern education, and it’s 
not to be reared on conventional lines.” 

Chris was in fits of laughter. “It’s a dear!” 
she gurgled. “Where did it come from?” 

“Dear old Clive sent it back from abroad,” 
Molly answered, dropping her voice a little. 

The laughter died out of Chris’s eyes, and 
she glanced instinctively from the black ribbons 
on Molly’s dress to the band round Pat’s 
sleeve; a little shadow hush fell on the three, 
broken by a man’s voice saying, “Let me echo 
the parrot’s sentiments! You are very wel¬ 
come, Christabel, my dear. I’m your Uncle 
Roger, and I hope we shall manage to make 
you happy here.” 

Chris turned towards a tall, grizzled, elderly 
man, with heavy brows and a deeply-lined face, 
who had entered the square panelled hall, and 
bent to brush her cheek with his moustache, 
saying kindly, “So you are my unknown niece! 
I’m glad to see you among us. No mishaps on 
the journey, I hope?” 


20 


TOWN MOUSE—COUNTRY MICE 


“None,” Chris answered laughingly, “except 
on the drive home, when some neighbours of 
yours did their level best to run us down in a 
motor!” 

The moment the words were out, she wished 
she could have bitten them back, for her uncle’s 
kindly face grew suddenly stern and grim, as 
he looked at his son for confirmation; and as 
Pat said briefly, “The Broughtons, road¬ 
hogging as usual,” Chris surprised a look 
exchanged between father and son which made 
her feel exactly as though she had seen red 
lights go up. She was sure, also, that it was 
to change the subject that Molly said hastily, 
“Chrissie, do come to the fire.” She drew her 
towards the great old-world fireplace, with its 
ingle-nooks and open hearth. “You must be 
cold after the drive in that open trap—and 
starvingly hungry; we’ll have supper the first 
minute we can.” 

“Don’t wait supper for mef^ Pat called out 
from the broad oak staircase up which he was 
struggling with Chris’s box, “because I’ve got 
21 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


to put Pegasus into the stable, and feed the 
pigs, and no end of things.” 

Chris, following Molly up the stairs, felt 
that she was certainly in the country and that 
Pat had not exaggerated in his statement that 
they ‘‘did things for themselves.” Indeed, so 
far there had not appeared to he any one else 
to do anything. Before her arrival Chris had 
had a vague idea that a farmhouse was always 
teeming with human life—stable-boys, cow¬ 
herds, milk-maids, and ploughmen—^but so far 
she had seen no one at all but the Gilmours 
themselves. She felt that she would have to 
reconstruct her ideas of the “simple Hfe” on 
decidedly simpler lines. 

But she uttered an exclamation of pleasure 
as Molly showed her her bedroom, which in 
its countryfied way was yet spacious and dainty 
enough to seem luxurious compared to her 
dormitory cubicle at Wyngarth School, besides 
having the same old-world charm as the rest of 
the house, and a deep-seated latticed window 
which promised a lovely view by morning light. 

“I hope you’ll be comfy here, and not feel 
22 


TOWN MOUSE—COUNTRY MICE 


creepy in a strange room, Chrissie,” said Molly 
solicitously. “Anyhow you needn’t feel in the 
least cut off, for my room is on one side of 
yours, and Pat’s on the other. You see!”— 
and she opened a door, giving a glimpse of a 
hare-looking room, untidy with a boy’s chaotic 
disorder. Chris’s quick eyes took in, besides a 
collection of pads, racquets, and boxing-gloves, 
several shelves of studious-looking volumes, 
some unmistakable notebooks and hand-writ- 
ten papers littered on the table, a microscope 
in the window, and a carefully arranged collec¬ 
tion of fossils and another of birds’ eggs, all 
suggestive of the bents of the owner of the 
den, which indeed was much more like a make¬ 
shift study than a bedroom. “Pat’s clever. 
Thought so!—I was sure he was; but why on 
earth isn’t he at school?” she reflected. 

“And this is my room,” Molly added. 

Chris peeped inside. Molly’s room, in sharp 
contrast to Pat’s, was exquisitely neat, but very 
nearly as Spartan in its bare simplicity— 
indeed, so much so that Chris, mentally com¬ 
paring the two rooms with her own, could not 
23 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

avoid an uncomfortable suspicion that her 
cousins had furnished the ‘‘spare room’’ by 
collecting into it everything dainty and desir¬ 
able—the best arm-chair, the one eiderdown 
quilt, the least-worn rug, and prettiest toilet- 
cover—^that the house contained, and denuding 
themselves of all but the barest necessities. 

For she already had a shrewd suspicion that 
there would not be much superfluity of any¬ 
thing at “Hallowdene.” Her observant eyes 
and mind had already told her that, although 
the actual, age-old furniture of the house— 
most of it obvious heirlooms—would have de¬ 
lighted the heart of a connoisseur, anything 
capable of looking worn, from the dining-room 
window-curtains to Pat’s rough Norfolk 
jacket, was not merely shabby, but threadbare 
—and often transparently makeshift. Besides, 
some of the rooms, picturesque though they 
were, had the same appearance as the luggage- 
cart, of being badly in want of painting and 
freshening up. In fine, the splendid old house 
bore the impress of poverty—poverty putting 
a brave face upon its existence (as in the case 
24 


TOWN MOUSE—COUNTRY MICE 
of the arm-chair in Chris’s bedroom, which, 
as she discovered some days later, was drawn 
over a hole in the carpet and had some damage 
to its back camouflaged by a cushion), but 
unmistakably present notwithstanding. 

‘T believe I’m going to like the Gilmours 
frightfully, but I suspect they’re as poor as 
church mice,” Chris reflected as she was re¬ 
moving the stains of travel. 

But she could not afford to linger over her 
reflections, for Molly had assured her that 
supper would be “ready in a moment,” and 
her sharpened appetite urging her not to keep 
it waiting, she ran downstairs hoping for coun¬ 
try dainties. Nor was she disappointed, for 
they awaited her in true country freshness and 
profusion, but she would have enjoyed them 
more had she not perceived that she was the 
only one who did so. Molly, indeed, whose 
meal was interrupted by constantly starting 
up to fetch or change different dishes—for 
they waited on themselves—ate nothing but 
oatmeal porridge, and Pat, who did not come 
in until supper was almost over, made a meal 
25 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


of such meagre and Spartan simplicity as 
induced Chris to wonder whether he were in 
strict training for some athletic feat. ‘‘But 
perhaps country life is a sort of training,” she 
thought, “and you get so hard you would 
rather feed like that.” 

Of neither Pat nor her uncle did she get 
more than fleeting glimpses all the evening, 
for both seemed constantly, tirelessly busy 
outside; and growing too tired and drowsy 
after her long journey to respond even to 
Molly’s pleasant, simple chatter, Chris was 
glad to adopt her cousin’s suggestion of going 
to bed early. 

Up in the solitude of her pretty country bed¬ 
room she faced the facts of her new situation, 
and faced them, on the whole, with satisfaction. 

“So far, so good, I think,” she decided. “I 
like Molly, that’s certain, though I don’t some¬ 
how see myself ever being able to make a real 
chum of her as I can of Gypsy; and I think — 
though he wants knowing—I may be going to 
like Pat; and I simply love ‘Hallowdene’ 
already. Well—so I’m in for the simple life!” 

26 


TOWN MOUSE—COUNTRY MICE 

But with the words there came into her mind 
certain recollections—^the strange absence of 
human life about the farm, the Gilmours’ obvi¬ 
ous bitter feud with their next-door neighbours, 
and, more especially, Pat’s look and tone as he 
had said, “ ‘Hallowdene’ is going on belonging 
to the Gilmours,” and she smiled rather 
oddly. 

“But —is it exactly simple, though?” she 
reflected. “Judging from the amount of little 
mysteries I’ve scented already, it looks as 
though it were going to be a good bit more 
complicated than any other sort I’ve struck 
so far!” 


CHAPTER IV 


CARRYING ON 


C HRIS had fallen asleep between her 
lavender-scented sheets with the laud¬ 
able intention of being, like country 
people in books, up with the lark, and was 
proportionately dismayed to find in the morn¬ 
ing, on awakening and glancing at her watch, 
that it was already past eight o’clock. She 
scrambled through the process of dressing and 
flew downstairs, afraid she would find the 
others already at the breakfast-table; but the 
house seemed deserted, and Chris, setting off 
on a search for Molly, at last ran her to earth in 
the great farm kitchen, which, with its heavily 
beamed ceiling, black oak dresser covered with 
willow-patterned china, huge open fireplace, 
and red-brick floor, was an artist’s dream of 
all that a kitchen should be. 

Molly herself, standing at the table in a 
28 


CARRYING ON 


big blue apron with her hands deep in dough, 
looked most picturesquely in keeping with her 
surroundings. 

“Good morning, Chrissie! I hope you slept 
well?” she said, dimpling at Chris over her 
mixing-bowl. 

“I ot;er-slept, I’m afraid—^hope I’m not 
awfully late for breakfast!” Chris apologized. 

“Oh, breakfast’s a very movable sort of meal 
here!” said Molly quickly. “We just have it 
whenever we come down; but if you’ll go 
into the dining-room, Chris, I’ll bring yours 
directly. Had mine? Oh, yes! You see I’ve 
been down since six—oh, that’s nothing! Pat 
gets up at five, and sometimes at four if there’s 
more than usual to do.” 

Chris opened her eyes; she had considered 
herself to be leading the strenuous life at Wyn- 
garth School, but at “Hallowdene” she felt 
herself a drone. She also wondered, as Molly 
set new-laid eggs, home-made bread and butter, 
honey and fresh fruit before her, whether had 
they breakfasted together she would have 
noticed as sharp a contrast between her own 
29 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
meal and her cousins’ as on the previous eve¬ 
ning. 

‘T hope you won’t think me rude if I don’t 
come about with you much this morning, 
Chrissie,” Molly said apologetically, as she 
laid the table, “because I have got such a lot 
to do! You see, there’s only old Mrs. Ridd to 
help-” 

“Mrs. Ridd?” echoed Chris, quite relieved 
to hear that there was any one, 

“Yes. She’s—well, I don’t quite know 
whether to call her our old nurse, or house¬ 
keeper, or cook, or dairymaid, or what, for 
she’s a little of everything!” Molly answered 
laughingly, “and so am I. We do all the work 
of the house between us, and as that includes 
lots of things, like looking after the chickens, 
and the dairy, and the vegetable-garden, that 
are not strictly housework, it keeps us pretty 
busy! So you’ll understand, won’t you, if I 
seem in a rush?” 

“Of course. Can’t I help?” 

“Oh no, please don’t bother yourself about 
it!” Molly flushed distressfully at the visitor’s 
30 



CARRYING ON 

suggestion. “I’m only sorry not to be free to 
amuse you.” 

“That’s all right, I’ll amuse myself; I’m 
simply longing to explore! How far off is the 
village, for the post office?—because I ought 
to post a letter to Mother, telling her I’ve got 
here safely.” 

“You can do that easily; there’s a letter-box 
just outside, but the village is two and a half 
miles away.” 

“Is it? Don’t you find it awkward some¬ 
times to be so cut off?” 

“Not specially, because we’re on the tele¬ 
phone,” Molly explained; and added, seeing 
the surprise and protest in Chris’s face, “Yes, 
I know it seems horribly modern and prosaic, 
but we simply had to have it; you see. Father 
does a good deal of other business besides farm¬ 
ing, so, being in this out-of-the-way corner, he 
really had to be able to telephone. But a tele¬ 
phone seems so fearfully out of keeping with a 
Tudor farmhouse that I almost wish we hadn’t 
got it.” 

“So do I! This house is such a dream, it 
31 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

should have nothing to do with anything so 
ugly and up-to-date and practical as a tele¬ 
phone,” Chris declared, not realizing then how 
soon she would find the practical value of those 
disfiguring wires. 

At that moment an apple-cheeked country¬ 
woman put her head in at the door, crying with 
a strong Devonshire dialect, “Miss Molly, 
where be you? Your bread is risin’—iss, 
indeed!” 

“I’m coming, Mrs. Ridd!” Molly cried, and 
vanished. 

Left by herself, Chris finished her breakfast, 
wrote to her mother and to Gypsy, and then 
began her explorations by examining the house. 
It fascinated her more at every turn, as she 
roamed from room to room. Shabby, even 
almost ramshackle it might be in parts, but 
beautiful, old-world, and lovable it was almost 
beyond description. 

“I love every bit of it, and I think I like 
this—or else the kitchen—^best of all,” she 
thought, coming to a halt at last in the square 
panelled hall. “I like that queer old stone fire- 
32 


CARRYING ON 


place so.” She glanced admiringly at the 
carved mantel, and became aware of a frame 
which stood upon it—a flat velvet case, half- 

closed. “I wonder if that’s- I think I 

might look. I should like to see what he was 
like,” she thought very gravely, and softly and 
reverently took up the case and opened it. 

It contained, as she had expected, the 
photograph of a young man, unmistakably a 
Gilmour, but the type was essentially Molly’s, 
with the same thick, fair hair and wide, honest 
eyes, and even a suspicion of Molly’s dimple 
about the half-smiling mouth, although the 
chin was strong and square like Pat’s. 

“I’m sure I should have liked Clive most 
awfully,” Chris said aloud as she looked. 

She had thought herself alone, but suddenly 
found Molly’s hand on her shoulder, and found 
that her cousin, duster in hand, had come into 
the hall. 

“You—don’t mind my looking at this, do 
you?” Chris asked rather awkwardly. 

“No, Chrissie, dear.” Molly’s voice was very 
quiet. “I’m glad; I should like you to feel 
33 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


that you know him a little bit, as well as the 
rest of us.” 

“He was drowned, wasn’t he?” said Chris in 
hushed tones. 

“The ship he was on was reported ‘missing’; 
that left us in ghastly uncertainty at first, be¬ 
cause we couldn’t help hoping against hope, 
but I’m afraid there’s nothing left to hope for 
now. Oh, Chrissie, he was such a nice old 
darling!—and my special chum-” 

Molly’s voice broke suddenly, and Chris 
pressed her arm, saying quickly, “Don’t, dear 
old girl.” 

But Molly looked at her with a brave little 
quivering smile. “I won’t,” she said. “It’s 
all right. Dear old Clive wouldn’t want us to 
be—dismal; he’d just want us to carry on.” 
Impulsively she kissed Chris, and saying hur¬ 
riedly, “I must go and sweep upstairs,” left 
the room. 

Somehow even those last words did not seem 
to Chris, as she went soberly out into the 
garden, at all inappropriate or prosaic; they 
held too much of the gallant spirit of “carry- 
34 



CARRYING ON 

ing on.” Her own girlish life had, so far, been 
untouched by any real sorrow, and the glimpse 
of the great realities which she had just had 
through Molly’s eyes awed her; her face was 
very grave as she wandered on between the 
box hedges and bushes of lavender, under the 
high lichened walls, where peaches would bask, 
and roses flourish in a wilderness of beauty, 
when the summer came; and even the glimpses 
of animal life she got from time to time, when 
she peeped into cow-houses, stables, or chicken- 
run, the wild welcome which the dogs. Twee¬ 
dledum and Tweedledee, gave her when she 
encountered them in the old gnarled orchard, 
and the enchanting discovery of some fluffy 
kittens in a barn, did not altogether restore 
her spirits nor banish the sense of a shadow 
hovering over the quiet old house. 

Of human life there was no sign, and Chris, 
as her explorations led her farther afleld, won¬ 
dered more and more at its absence. She was 
about to go indoors at last, when she heard a 
sound of whistling coming from a barn, and, 
looking in, discovered her cousin Pat—Pat, 
35 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
in his shirt-sleeves and extremely busy, clean¬ 
ing boots. 

His occupation was as unmistakable as the 
dainty bit of feminine footgear upon which he 
was then at work; and Chris, fresh from a 
luxurious college and much home pampering, 
stopped in the doorway with a gasp. 

"'Patr she cried. 

Pat stopped his polishing and turned 
quickly. Chris’s face was crimson. “Don’t— 
that’s mine—^you shouldn’t be doing—oh, 
donftV’ she stammered in vehement protest. 

Pat flushed also, up to his hair; then he 
laughed, shrugged, and put a good face on it. 
“Oh, it’s all right—^we don’t mind what we do 
here!” he assm^ed her lightly 

“But surely— surely, you could get one of 
your farm-men to do thatV Chris protested 

“One of the men?” Pat repeated. He put 
down Chris’s boot, dug his hands in his pockets, 
and came towards her. “You see, Chris,” he 
explained a trifle awkwardly, “the fact of the 
matter is, there arenH any farm-hands here 
now. There’s Molly and Mrs. Ridd—^they do 
36 


CARRYING ON 

the work indoors, and Father and I do it out 
of doors; but you won’t find any one else doing 
anything, because there simply is nobody else 
at all. So make allowances for anything that 
seems a bit makeshift, won’t you?” 

“But—do you and Uncle Roger run the 
whole farm, then?” Chris gasped, finding the 
idea suggestive of the tasks of Hercules. Then, 
with an inspiration, she asked, “Do you mean 
men are so scarce hereabouts that you can’t 
get any one to help?” 

“Well—no—not exactly that,” Pat began, 
looking as though he would have liked to adopt 
the suggestion. Then he fiushed again, “Any¬ 
way, it isn’t only that,” he added awkwardly, 
“other reasons too; well, I can’t explain ex¬ 
actly, but anyhow that’s how it is, and we’re 
just by ourselves here, carrying on.” 

Somehow that last phrase, echoing Molly's, 
saved the situation, by awakening a response 
in Chris. Impetuously, she held out her hand. 

“I understand,” she said—“sorry I didn’t 
before. But it’s a big j ob, isn’t it ?—and—and— 
Pat, I wish you’d let me help you ‘carry on’!” 


CHAPTER V 


DISASTER 


‘‘"W ^OU two girls ought to go skating 
this afternoon,” Pat remarked to- 
wards the end of dinner. “There’s 
heavy snow coming up, so you may not get 
another chance, but the ice will bear all right 
to-day.” 

Chris bounded in her chair; skating was, to 
her thinking, among the supremest fun of 
life. “Oh, ripping!” she cried. “I am glad I 
brought my skates, just on the chance. Where 
shall you take us to skate, Pat?” 

“Nowhere; that is, I can’t come. Sorry, 
but I simply haven’t got half a second to spare 
to-day,” Pat explained, rising from the table 
as he spoke. “But if you and Molly go, the 
Black Pool would be the best place.” 

“I don’t know that I’ve really got time 
either-” Molly began. 

38 



DISASTER 


Pat looked at her, and Chris, rightly or 
wrongly, interpreted the look as meaning, 
“You must make time; Chris is a visitor”; but 
be that as it might, Molly ceased to demur. 
Instead, she said urgently, “Couldn’t you pos¬ 
sibly squeeze out an hour off, old boy, and 
come too? I don’t like this ‘aU work and no 
play’ regime; it’s so awfully bad for you—and, 
as Chris says, it would be ripping on the ice 
to-day.” 

Chris couldn’t help fancying that she de¬ 
tected suppressed longing in Pat’s eyes and 
voice; but he answered decidedly, “Can’t be 
done. I shall probably have to go over to 
Doone Farm, and if I do, I shan’t be back 
until after supper-time; and anyhow, I’m 
bound to be in too much of a rush for skating 
to be on the program. Have a good time, you 
two. So long!” and he departed. 

A little later Chris, from the window, saw 
him go past the house driving the cows and 
carrying a heavy pail of pigs’ food. “I know 
what Pat reminds me of,” she said impulsively 
to Molly—“Hans Andersen’s story of the 
39 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
Prince disguised as a swineherd! He looks 
just like that somehow.” 

Molly laughed. “He’d be greatly flattered 
if I told him you said so,” she returned. “Poor 
old prince, I wonder if he’ll ever be able to 
come into his kingdom and drop herding! I 
wish he could have dropped it for this one 
afternoon anyhow, to come skating with us.” 

“Oh, so do I!” said Chris warmly, as they 
went out together jingling their skates. “This 
bright, cold weather makes you feel so holiday- 
fled, and skating will be so perfectly topping; 
it’s a shame he shouldn’t have his share of it.” 
She gave a little, exhilarated spring, and 
looked round appreciatively, drinking in the 
keen, pure air and the wintry beauty of the 
landscape, brightened every here and there by 
gleaming red berries. “Oh, Molly,” she said 
impetuously, “how awfully nice the country 
can be even in winter! I believe I’m going to 
love it.” 

“/ do, always,” said Molly simply. “I 
should feel choked in a town. I’ve lived at 
‘Hallowdene’ all my life, and hardly ever 
40 


DISASTER 


been away from it, and it seems part of me.” 

“Yes, I can imagine that. You’d feel horri¬ 
bly uprooted if you had to go and live anywhere 
else, wouldn’t you?” said Chris casually. 

She spoke quite carelessly, and was surprised 
to notice how seriously Molly took the remark. 
Her face clouded over, and there came into 
her eyes a look which was almost one of dread. 
“Yes,” she said in a low, intense tone, “I 
should,” and it was obviously to change the 
subject that she began hastily pointing out 
features of the landscape to Chris, and telling 
her about her surroundings. 

The walk to the Black Pool, although so 
beautiful that Chris could not wish it shorter 
even in her impatience to begin the skating, 
was a long one, and by the time they reached 
the smooth stretch of frozen water hidden 
among trees—a quiet backwater of the wild 
Devon stream they had seen brawling among 
the rocks a little while before—the afternoon 
was clouding over, so that Molly, as she sat 
on the bank buckling her skates, glanced at 
the sky with country-bred weather-wise eyes 
41 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


and remarked, ‘T’m glad we seized the chance 
of skating to-day, for we may not get another 
—the snow is coming up fast.” 

“Let’s make the most of it, then!” cried 
Chris, as she struck out into the centre of the 
pool. 

In a moment Molly had joined her, and they 
were skimming together with crossed hands 
over the ice. Different as had been the circum¬ 
stances under which they had learnt—Chris on 
the Serpentine, and when taken abroad for 
“winter sports,” and Molly on such simple 
country outings as this—both were good 
skaters, and as the glowing, tingling exhilara¬ 
tion of the delicious exercise got into their 
blood, Molly’s housewifely cares, and a certain 
suspicion of home-sickness which had haunted 
Chris all the morning, fell away from them; 
they became just two happy, care-free chil¬ 
dren, and their laughter and merry voices rang 
out in gay contrast to the quiet winter after¬ 
noon—quiet with the almost weird stillness of 
approaching snow. 

It was not until the clouds had gathered 
42 


DISASTER 


heavily, and the afternoon was drawing in, 
that Molly at last, and most reluctantly, 
declared that they must go home; and on 
reaching the bank, it was she who after all 
drew back with failing resolution. 

“Chrissie,” she exclaimed laughingly, “you’ll 
think me a weak-minded idiot, but I must—I 
simply must go back just for one minute, and 
go only once more round the pool, before we 
leave!” 

“All right! I’d come too, only I’ve got one 
skate off, and they’re such awkward things to 
unfasten, it isn’t worth while putting it on 
again just for a minute,” Chris returned. 

She bent to struggle with the strap of her 
other skate, and did not look round until sud¬ 
denly a sharp cry from the pool made her 
turn in startled haste. 

She perceived that Molly had slipped and 
fallen on the ice, and something about the 
huddled, helpless way in which she was lying, 
and the feeble, ineffectual effort she made to 
raise herself, made Chris’s heart stand still. 

Things happen very suddenly sometimes. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE ORDEAL 

HRIS!” Molly’s voice cried, faint 
and unlike itself. “Oh, Chris, do 



come—oh—^h—^h-” 

The words sounded gasped, and they ended 
in a moan. 

Chris, gripped by a horrible conviction that 
she was faced by one of those sudden catas¬ 
trophes which seem too bad to be true until 
they actually happen, tore to Molly’s side and 
knelt, terror-stricken, beside her on the ice, 
sickened by the perception of how Molly was 
lying with one foot completely doubled under 
her. 

“What is it, dear old girl? What have you 
done?” she asked, with a thumping heart and a 
vivid recollection of how once at Wyngarth, 
when the hockey captain had broken her arm 


44 



THE ORDEAL 


in a match, it had seemed to be crumpled up 
beneath her just like that. 

‘T—don't know," Molly gasped. ‘Tt’s my 
leg—I suppose IVe sprained my ankle—oh, 
it’s ghastly!" 

Her head had fallen back, her eyes were 
half-closed, and the deathly whiteness of her 
face warned Chris that something very much 
more serious than a sprain was the matter; but 
in sheer desperation she fought against the 
conviction. 

“Molly, you know we simply must get back, 
somehow," she urged. “Don’t you think, if 
you were to let me help you up and then lean 
on me as much as ever you liked, you could get 
along?" 

She slipped her arm under her cousin’s 
shoulders and tried to lift her, and Molly made 
a gallant effort to raise herself, but dropped 
back with a scream. 

“I can’t!" she sobbed. “Chris, I can’t—it’s 
no good, I canH —it’s too awful!" 

Chris, terribly frightened, bent over her, 
fearing her about to faint; and at that instant 
45 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

something soft and cold touched her cheek, 
and she saw Molly’s dress flecked with what 
looked white even by contrast with her drawn 
face. The snow had begun. 

In another moment it was falling thick and 
fast about them—and Chris pulled herself to¬ 
gether to face the general disaster. What was 
to be done? She had no longer any delusion 
as to the accident being a trifle like a twisted 
ankle—she knew that Molly was really hurt, 
and that with no amount of help would she be 
able to walk home; and to carry her was 
equally impossible, since Chris was the shorter 
and slighter of the two. Yet were they to 
remain where they were, what chance was there 
of their being rescued? They would not be 
missed at ‘‘Hallowdene” until late, and even 
when they were, only Pat would know what 
their plans had been and where to look for 
them, and his words came luridly back into 
Chris’s mind: ‘T shall probably have to go 
over to Doone Farm, and if I do, I shan’t be 
back until after supper-time.” They could 
not, therefore, count on being traced to the 
46 


THE ORDEAL 

Black Pool for many hours; and for Molly, 
injured as she was, to lie there hour after hour 
in the intense cold and deepening snow was 
not to be thought of, while to leave her alone, 
even to seek help, seemed equally impossible. 
Yet Chris knew it must be done. 

“Molly, dear old thing,’' she said as she bent 
over her cousin, “I can’t bear to leave you even 
for a minute, but I must. I’ve got to go and 
get help. I mean, as I can’t carry you home I 
must find somebody who can, for we can’t stay 
here. It’s horrid, but it’s simply the only sen¬ 
sible thing to be done.” 

That might be—but poor Molly, completely 
overwrought by recent shock and present suf¬ 
fering, was past taking the sensible view, and 
could not see beyond the immediate horror of 
being left alone to face pain and solitude at the 
desolate Black Pool; she clung frantically to 
Chris and besought her sobbingly not to leave 
her, and it took all the strength of character 
Chris possessed, and which the girls at Wyn- 
garth had known her to possess when they 
47 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

elected her Head of the Middle School, to 
enable her to keep to her resolution and go. 

But go she knew she must. Not for her own 
sake—she was honestly not thinking about 
herself at all—but for Molly’s; at the present 
crisis she had to think for Molly as well as act 
for her, and she knew that the only possible 
way to aid her was to fetch help—and to fetch 
it quickly, before the darkness of oncoming 
night was added to that of the snow, and made 
it totally impossible to find the way to “Hal- 
lowdene.” It was, in fine, absolutely necessary 
to seem cruel in order to be kind. 

So with a desperate effort of will she released 
herself from poor Molly’s piteous hold, took 
off her own coat and wrapped it about her 
cousin, and promising to be back “the first 
second I can,” tore herself away, feeling the 
act like a base desertion. Leaving Molly was, 
in fact, the hardest, and therefore the bravest, 
thing she had ever had to do. 

But the thought of her cousin lying there in 
helpless torture haunted her, almost to the 
pitch of driving her back, as she forced her 
48 


THE ORDEAL 


way through the belt of trees around the Black 
Pool, and out across the open country over 
which they had come, struggling over the 
rough, heavy ground, against the icy wind 
which drove the snow into her face, and cut 
like a knife through her indoor dress, now that 
she had given her coat to Molly; but although 
she was shivering until her teeth chattered, she 
could not dwell on physical discomforts—she 
was too much possessed by the thought of 
Molly, and also by another thought which had 
begun to haunt her, namely, a grim doubt as 
to whether she would be able to find her way 
to “Hallowdene,” She had come to the Black 
Pool that afternoon for the first time in her 
life, and how could she possibly remember all 
the short-cuts, field-paths, and side-turnings 
Molly had taken, and find her way back, in the 
gathering dusk and the bewildering snow? 

“But even if I can’t,” Chris thought, as she 
struggled on breathlessly, “I’m bound, if I 
keep on, to come to some house or cottage, or 
meet some one who will help us!” 

But as time went on, and “Hallowdene” 
49 


SECRET OF HALLOWDEXE FARM 


failed to appear, and she grew more and more 
certain of having missed the way, her courage 
failed, her hopes waned, and fear took posses¬ 
sion of her. The ordeal was becoming too 
much for her. The wild sohtude of her sur¬ 
roundings was in itself alarming to a town-bred 
girl, and to this natural terror was now added 
a lurid fear of being benighted as well as lost. 

“And if I am, what will happen?’’ Chris 
thought, as she tried in vain to see her way 
through the falling snow. “They’ll be able to 
find Molly at the Black Pool when Pat comes 
home anyhow, but how would they ever find 
meV^ 

The wild skirl of the snow-laden wind was 
her only answer, and sheer horror was taking 
hold upon her, when— 

“Coo—00—00—ee!” 

Never in her life had Chris known so ecstatic 
a moment as when that shout broke upon her 
ears, and she perceived a figure bearing down 
upon her—whether friend, stranger, or even 
rough tramp, she hardly cared, seeing that it 
was at least a fellow human being! The next 
50 


THE ORDEAE 


moment she recognized Pat, who came striding 
across the field to her, calling out, “Hallo, 
Chris! What are you doing here? Where’s 
Molly? I didn’t have to go to Doone Farm 

after all, so I came this way to- Great 

Scot! what’s up?” 

Chris had caught at his arm and almost 
fallen against him, lifting a white and tragic 
face. “Oh, Pat,” she gasped, “it’s Molly! She 
slipped on the ice at the Black Pool and hurt 
herself awfully, so that she can’t move, and I 
had to leave her there to get help, and I was 
lost and thought I should never find any¬ 
body-” 

She saw the boy’s face change and set, and 
saw him square his shoulders. 

“Right,” he said briefly. “Come on! This 
way’s the quickest”—and as he turned aside 
Chris felt with relief that the initiative, and 
the need for decisive action, had been taken 
out of her hands. 

But in a moment Pat checked. “Here,” he 
said curtly, “put this on,” and dragged off 
his greatcoat. 


51 




SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

‘'Oh no—^please!” Chris protested. 

For answer Pat merely held the coat up for 
her, and Chris slipped into it without further 
protest, knowing instinctively that he would 
get his own way, but somehow not resenting 
his masterfulness; she had almost to run to 
keep up with him as they went on, but knew all 
the same that he was slackening his stride on 
her account. He was taking her quite a differ¬ 
ent way from the route Molly had chosen, and 
before long they came to a high fence with a 
notice-board, which stated fiercely that tres¬ 
passers would be “prosecuted with the utmost 
rigour of the law”; but Pat, taking no heed of 
the warning, climbed the fence and helped 
Chris over, and they had got about half-way 
across a path leading over the park-like field 
which lay beyond, when they heard themselves 
hailed, and some one advanced upon them, 
calling out angrily, “What are you doing on 
our property?” 

The aggressor was a heavy-looking, slouch¬ 
ing boy of about Pat’s age, and Chris recog¬ 
nized him as having been the companion of the 
52 


THE ORDEAL 


insolent motorist who had nearly run them 
down on the previous day. Pat, thus accosted, 
made no attempt to halt, but pulled Chris on, 
saying curtly, “The Gilmours claim right of 
way across this path, Broughton, and you 
know it.” 

But the newcomer barred their path. “None 
of your cheek, young Gilmour! You know 
jolly well that’s rot,” he said roughly. 

Pat checked in his stride. “I advise you,” 
he said very quietly, in a dead-level voice, “not 
to try to interfere with me.” 

Chris caught her breath sharply, wondering 
what was going to happen, and sure of only 
one thing—that Pat meant to get through to 
Molly by the quickest possible route, and that 
it would take more than the Broughton boy to 
stop him. But apparently the hostile owner 
of the disputed path came to much the same 
conclusion, for his face grew pasty-white and 
he drew back, scowling and saying insolently, 
“We can afford to let you try to bluff for the 
present, Gilmour, but perhaps you won’t crow 
so loud after next quarter-day!” 

53 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Chris, in her frenzy of anxiety to get back 
to Molly, could hardly attend to that insulting 
speech sufficiently to wonder what was the 
meaning of the barbed shaft it evidently con¬ 
tained ; and Pat, with no time to spare for any 
further hostilities, strode on without retort. 
The disputed path proved an amazingly short 
cut, and in what seemed to Chris, despite her 
wild impatience, a wonderfully short time, they 
had reached the Black Pool, where Molly still 
lay helpless, with the snow thick and white 
upon the coat with which Chris had covered 
her. 


CHAPTER VII 


DISTINGUISHED SERVICE 


C HRIS looked back afterwards on that 
return journey to “Hallo wdene,” 
wondering how they had ever got 
there. There had been nothing adequate with 
which to improvise any sort of stretcher, so 
every step of the way (which, this time, he 
did not make over the Broughton land—Chris 
guessed because he would not risk another 
angry encounter in the presence of the two 
girls) Pat carried Molly in his arms. The 
poor girl, when he lifted her, had given one 
scream and then fainted, of which they were 
almost glad, since it spared her some suffering; 
but Chris marvelled (since Molly was tall and 
stalwart and nearly full grown) how he could 
manage to support her dead weight over the 
rough snow-laden ground and in the teeth of 
the wild, driving blizzard. Moreover, to add 
55 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

to their difficulties, to the darkness of the snow 
was now added the deepening shade of ap¬ 
proaching night, so that they had almost to 
grope their way along, and Chris was in con¬ 
stant terror lest Pat should put his foot in a 
hole or stumble over something, and fall with 
Molly in his arms. It was impossible to talk 
much, although occasionally Pat would turn to 
Chris as she trudged at his side with an encour¬ 
aging “Cheerio!” or “Buck up!” and she would 
respond, “It’s all right”; but neither had any 
need to force a smile for the sake of the other, 
for they could hardly see each other’s faces. 

What a beacon the farm lights looked, and 
what a haven of refuge “Hallowdene” seemed, 
when at last that unspeakably weary pilgrim¬ 
age came to an end. Chris ceased to resent 
that prosaic telephone, and blessed it, when she 
heard Pat ringing up the doctor, who otherwise 
would have had to be sought, and perhaps not 
found, at a town several miles away. Mr. 
Gilmour was out, but Mrs. Ridd and Pat be¬ 
tween them were able to do all for Molly which 
could at present be done, and Chris stayed with 
56 


DISTINGUISHED SERVICE 


her until the doctor came; then, on his arrival, 
Pat banished her from the room, whispering at 
the door, “You must be pretty well soaked and 
frozen. Swear you’ll go straight off and 
change.” 

Chris promised, finding it comforting to 
be thought of and cared for even at such a 
crisis. “And I know,” she thought, as she sat 
on her bed pulling on dry stockings, “it wasn’t 
only to change that Pat sent me away, but to 
get rid of me in case the doctor has to do any¬ 
thing hurting^ like setting a bone, that would 
be horrid to see.” 

Then, having changed, she stole down to the 
dark and empty rooms below to wait for the 
doctor’s verdict. 

The suspense was acute, for sheer nervous 
and physical exhaustion worked on her imagi¬ 
nation and filled her mind with all sorts of 
forebodings; it seemed an age before the doc¬ 
tor was heard departing, and Pat came in, 
saying, “It’s all right.” 

“Oh, Pat!—you mean-” Chris faltered. 

“Molly’s all right—at least she will be; that 
57 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

is, she’s broken her leg as we thought, but it’s 
only a simple fracture—no complications or 
anything—so it will mend all serene. She’ll 
have to lie up for the next six weeks, of course, 
but that’s about all.” 

“But how is she herself?” Chris urged. “I’m 
so afraid of the chill, and the shock, and all 
that, making her really—awfully bad.” 

“I don’t think it need. We’re a set of tough 
old fire-eaters in this family; it takes a lot to 
make any of us turn a hair,” Pat assured her, 
with a rather unnatural httle laugh. 

The sound of it would have told Chris, had 
she not been completely overwrought herself, 
that he, too, was near the end of his tether; 
but with the sudden rehef, which relaxed the 
tension, she had reached her breaking-point, 
and dropping into a chair, laid her head on 
her arm, sobbing hysterically. 

“Pat,” she gasped, “I’m a p—perfect idiot— 
I d—d—didn’t mean—awfully sorry—^just a 
minute-” 

She felt a strong arm tighten around her 
shoulders, and heard a reassuring voice. 

58 



DISTINGUISHED SERVICE 
“That’s all right, old thing; don’t you worry. 
You're all right. Just hold on to me.” 

Chris did, gratefully, thankful for some¬ 
thing strong and steady to cling to, and fought 
for self-control with her head against Pat’s 
rough sleeve. “That—that’s all right now! I 
won’t—be like that—any more,” she mur¬ 
mured at last. 

“That’s good!” said Pat cheerily, though 
his hand did not relax its grip on her shoulder. 
“I say, you’re shivering like anything; come 
into the kitchen—there’s a better fire there— 
and we’ll make tea.” 

Chris, dazed and shaky, suffered herself to 
be taken to the farm kitchen, and from the 
chimney-corner watched, with the apathy of 
exhaustion, her cousin heaping up the fire, and 
making the tea with awkward inexperience. 
It was only when he brought her cup to 
her, and she saw how white he was looking 
and that the brown hand holding the saucer 
was not quite steady, that she realized that the 
recent shock and strain had been as great for 
59 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
him as for herself, and pulled herself together 
with vehement suddenness. 

“Pat,” she said, sitting upright and speak¬ 
ing with startling energy, “I’ve been a nuisance 
and a selfish idiot! You want looking after 
just as much as I do—I can see that—and I 
won’t touch this tea unless you sit down and 
have some too, so there!” 

She bestirred herself to reverse the order of 
things by taking care of Pat, and to find food 
in the cupboard, for which neither of them felt 
inclined; but they drank the hot tea, sitting 
together close tp the fire, and were very glad 
of it, and of the warmth and firelight, and each 
other’s company, and all little human touches 
of comfort which helped to make life seem 
more normal again after the ghastly, night¬ 
mare-like ordeal through which they had 
passed; and Pat understood when Chris leant 
forward to touch his cup with hers and said 
softly, “Molly —healths 

“I think she’ll be all right, poor old thing,” 
he reiterated, “though of course she’ll be out 
of things for ages; but Mrs. Ridd will be able 
60 


DISTINGUISHED SERVICE 

to look after her all right—though I suppose 
that means we shall have to get some one else 
in to help,” he concluded, in a worried tone 
Chris hardly understood. 

“You must let me help too,” she urged. 
“I don’t want you to think”—she flushed hotly 
as she spoke—“that I’m really such an idiot 
as you must have thought just now.” 

“Must I, though?” Pat retorted. He 
stretched out his hand to her for a little, quick 
grip, and Chris saw that there was a deep red 
ridge across the fingers, marking how Molly’s 
hand, which had a ring—^her mother’s—on it, 
had clung to his while the broken bone was 
being set. “Not muchl Look here, Chris, I’m 
no good at saying things, but if you think I 
don’t know what it must have meant to you to 
have the sense to go off alone to get help, how¬ 
ever caddish it seemed to leave Molly, you’re 
jolly well wrong.” 

Chris glowed, feeling more really at home 
at that moment than she had done since her 
arrival, in the warm consciousness that some¬ 
body understood, and the sense that she was 
61 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
making a friend. She had felt from the first 
that she would never be able to make a very 
intimate chum of Molly, simply because they 
would not have enough in common, but of Pat 
she was not so sure; he interested her, and she 
felt very close to him at that moment. 

She imagined on going to bed that night that 
she would lie awake from anxiety and keep 
awake intentionally in case of need; but tired 
nature rebelled, and she fell asleep almost as 
her head touched the pillow, and slept without 
a break until morning. The instant she awoke, 
she stole to Molly’s door to make anxious 
inquiries, but received from Mrs. Ridd, now 
established as sick-nurse, a reassuring reply— 
Molly had had as good a night as could be 
expected, was going on well, and was now 
asleep; and, thus relieved, Chris hastened 
through her toilet, brimful of ambitious resolu¬ 
tions about proving immensely useful and 
sensible at the present domestic crisis, tem¬ 
pered by misgivings as to whether she would 
really be capable of even getting the break¬ 
fast—‘‘but I must be able to boil eggs and 
62 


DISTINGUISHED SERVICE 

make tea anyway,” she thought—‘‘that is, if 
I can ever get the fire to light.” 

She discovered, however, that a good fire 
was already burning, the table laid, and her 
food awaiting her, while on her plate lay a 
written message: 

“Have had to go over to Bretly with Father 
about the sheep, so don’t wait breakfast—shall 
be back for mine about nine o’clock. Pat.” 

The message awoke misgivings of which the 
writer of it had had no idea, for it told Chris 
that she must be entirely alone at the isolated 
farm with Molly, who was helpless, and Mrs. 
Ridd, an old woman, and that, since Pat’s 
errand concerned the sheep, even the dogs had 
probably gone with him; and she was too en¬ 
tirely a town-bred girl quite to relish such 
solitude. The idea might have affected her 
less had she not still been rather overwrought 
from the shock of the day before; but as it was, 
her nerves being on edge, she found herself 
perpetually listening for suspicious sounds in 
63 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

and about the quiet house, until suddenly her 
ear was caught by an unmistakable footstep 
outside. She peered from the window, and 
caught sight of the figure of a boy, or man, in 
queer, loose, dirty-looking clothes, close to the 
farm. 

“Who’s that?” she thought, her heart beating 
quickly. “Not a farm-hand, for there aren’t 
any. If it’s a countryman from one of the 
cottages about with some message, of course 
he’ll come straight to the door,” and she waited 
anxiously for the sound of a knock, but none 
came. 

Chris’s heart began to hammer. The rapid¬ 
ity with which one grisly adventure followed 
another in the so-called peace of the country 
appalled her. Who was this man, and what 
could be his intentions that he came prowling 
about the house without seeking to make his 
presence known? If he were a rough tramp, 
or even a burglar—the fact that she was alone, 
save for Mrs. Ridd and Molly, rose again, with 
horrible force, to her mind. 

But if the thought increased her fears, it 
64 


DISTINGUISHED SERVICE 
also aroused her sense of responsibility. Not 
only was there no one to defend her, but she 
had two helpless people—an old woman and 
an invalid—to defend; if anything could be 
done to safeguard them against the marauder, 
it was she, and she alone, who must do it. 
Chris, very white, pulled herself together. 

‘T must see what he’s up to—there’s nobody 
else to look after the others,” she muttered, 
and gathering all her courage, opened the door 
and slipped cautiously into the snow-laden 
world outside. 

What she saw confirmed her worst fears; 
for at that moment the tramp, his back toward 
her, was entering a large tool-shed which stood 
near the house—a place where no outsider 
could have any legitimate business whatsoever. 

And then a sudden inspiration came to Chris. 
The tool-house was strong, and had no outlet 
except the heavy door—and the key was on 
the outside. If she could not dismiss the 
prowling rough, she could at least guard the 
house by holding him prisoner until help 
arrived. 


65 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

Hardly pausing to think lest her courage 
should fail her, she darted, silent and swift as 
a little mouse, across the snowy strip of garden, 
and before the tramp could turn upon her, 
slammed the outhouse door upon him and 
turned the key. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A ‘*SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING’’ 


T he instant she had done it she made 
her escape, hearing even as she ran, 
but not stopping for an instant to 
heed, the prisoner shouting after her and bat¬ 
tering on the locked door. Arrived at the 
house, she dropped breathless on to a seat, 
and, quivering with excitement, reviewed the 
situation. 

It would be all right now, she told herself; 
it must be all right now. It was already nearly 
eight o’clock, and at nine Pat would be re¬ 
turning and probably bringing one or both of 
the dogs with him, and between them they 
would surely be able to get the better of the 
tramp and banish him from “Hallowdene,” 
however strong and angry he might be. She 
could still hear plainly from the house, al- 
67 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


though slightly muffled, his infuriated on¬ 
slaught on the tool-house door, but there was, 
she knew, no possibility of his escape—unless, 
indeed, he should succeed in breaking the door 
open. The thought made Chris quake, look 
anxiously at the grandfather’s clock, and long 
for the hour of nine and the return of Pat 
with the dogs. 

But nine o’clock came and passed, and no 
Pat appeared; the time went by, ten o’clock 
struck, and still he had not come, although 
Chris, her nerves strung to quivering pitch, 
awaited his coming in a frenzy of suspense. 

In the first glow of triumph she had felt 
herself not a little of a heroine, and plumed 
herself considerably upon the prompt and 
daring measures she had taken to ensure the 
safety of the house and its inhabitants during 
the absence of its menfolk; she had even 
laughed to herself, although it was rather a 
scared and shaky little laugh, as she heard her 
prisoner vainly battering at the door, and 
gloated over the thought of telling Pat of her 
exploit on his return. But he did not come, 
68 


A “SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING” 


and in the quiet which presently ensued (the 
tramp having apparently given up his on¬ 
slaught on the door as a bad job and decided 
to await his release), Chris, with leisure to 
think, felt the first glamour and thrill of the 
adventure fading away, and faint but painful 
doubts beginning to assail her. 

“Just suppose,” she reflected despite her¬ 
self, “it wasn’t really a burglar or anybody 
horrid, but only one of the neighbours after 
all, or somebody Uncle Roger had sent to the 
farm for some reason—^what a frightful idiot 
I should feel!” 

And it was then that an awful thought— 
connecting itself with Pat’s mysterious ab¬ 
sence, and the fact that she had only seen the 
back, not the face of the strange “tramp”— 
struck her for the first time; a thought which 
made her feel hot all over, and then cold. 

“Oh no, no—it couldn't be thatV she 
thought, clasping her hands convulsively. “I 
should have known better than that —I’m sure 
I should. It couldn't be 1” 

But the bare possibility which had struck 
69 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


her was so horrifying that she felt it impera¬ 
tive to dismiss even that shadow of a doubt 
by seeing her captive. The tool-house had no 
window, but Chris remembered a small hole 
in the roof which Mr. Gilmour had spoken of 
mending, and a twisted, climbable-looking tree 
which grew close beside the shed, so thought 
it might be possible, by climbing up into the 
tree, to peer down through the hole. 

So she again stole out to the tool-house, the 
snow making it easy to tread silently, mounted 
easily enough into the low, inviting branches 
of the old, gnarled tree, peered eagerly down 
through the hole in the roof—and nearly fell 
from the tree with sheer horror as she saw her 
prisoner. 

It was Pat! Pat, sitting hunched up on an 
inverted pail with his hands clasped round his 
knees, in an attitude suggestive of Patience 
on a monument, but with an expression on his 
face which boded no good to the guilty. 

Never would Chris forget her overwhelming 
sensations as she made that appalling discov¬ 
ery! She had been through more than one 
70 


A “SHEEP IN WOLF’S CLOTHING” 

London air-raid, but even that terror had been 
hardly worse than, in its different way, was 
this! There came over her an awful wave of 
realization of what she had done. It was now 
considerably past ten o’clock; since before 
eight Pat had been held prisoner in the shed— 
and it was her hand which had done the deed. 

“And the boy must be so cold,” Chris 
thought, shivering herself, more with fright 
than the chill of the snowy air, “and so hungry 
—^he hadn’t even had breakfast, and he’s been 
shut up in that half-dark freezing shed a good 
two hours, and more—and how shall I ever 
make him believe I didn’t mean to do it?” 

She was acutely and terrifyingly aware that 
it now behoved her to release him, and felt 
as though she were called upon to unfasten 
the cage of a raging tiger. What Pat’s wrath 
would be like she did not know, but felt that 
she could imagine only too well, by fancying 
what her own would have been under similar 
circumstances. 

Having got down from the tree, she stood 
for a moment facing the tool-house door, really 
71 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


unable to summon spirit to undo it. Then, in 
a sort of desperation, she turned the key and 
flung the door open; and, having done so her 
courage suddenly and completely forsook her. 
Not waiting to speak a word of excuse or 
apology, not daring even to look at Pat, she 
simply turned and fled. 


CHAPTER IX 


PAT 


P RECISELY what Chris intended to 
do when she made that ignominious 
bolt she hardly knew; she was pos¬ 
sessed by only one idea—the awful impossi¬ 
bility of facing Pat, fresh from two hours’ 
solitary confinement in the Arctic semi-dark¬ 
ness of the shed. 

She knew it would be perfectly useless to 
make for the house, since he would be bound 
to run her to earth there. But she bethought 
her of the apple-loft, as affording a possible 
temporary refuge, and racing for the barn as 
though wolves were after her, seized the ladder 
and flung it against the trap-door of the loft, 
and scurrying up it like a frightened squirrel, 
pulled it up after her and slammed down the 
door. 


73 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

She knew well enough that it was an utterly 
absurd proceeding—that she could not possibly 
remain where she was, and would be obliged 
sooner or later to face Pat and have it out with 
him; but she told herself, cowardly-wise, that 
some third person, perhaps Uncle Roger, 
might then be present to intercede for her and 
make the ordeal less alarming, and that at all 
events nothing could be so bad as to meet Pat 
now^ come straight from his imprisonment, be¬ 
fore any time at all had elapsed to give his just 
wrath and fury a chance of cooling down. 
She had had barely time to make her escape, 
for she had heard him call out after her and 
known that he was in pursuit; and in spite 
of the start she had had in the race, she had 
barely, as it were, gained her fortress and 
pulled up her drawbridge when she heard be¬ 
low “Coo-ee!” 

It was the same call she had heard the day 
before, when she was lost in the snow, but 
with what different feelings! Now she dared 
not answer, although a moment later “Coo-ee!” 
came again, and an impatient “Chris! Chris!” 

74 


PAT 


Chris, crouching among the apples, waited, 
hoping against hope that Pat would suppose 
himself mistaken as to her hiding-place and 
go away; but the hope was in vain. 

‘T know you’re there,” she heard Pat’s voice, 
all too audible, say impatiently from below. 
“Come down, can’t you?—or let the ladder 
down, and I’ll come up.” 

But neither behest had Chris the courage to 
obey. 

“Chris,” the voice below urged, its tone be¬ 
come almost wheedlesome, “don’t be silly!” 

But still Chris did not answer. She waited 
in horrible suspense, and was beginning to 
hope that he had gone away in disgust, when 
she heard a strange scrambling noise outside, 
a shadow darkened the loft, the window was 
pushed up, and one of Pat’s long legs (clad, 
as Chris now perceived, not in tramp’s rags, 
hut only in rough overalls such as he might 
naturally wear for doing especially dirty farm- 
work) appeared through it. 

“You might have had the decency to let 
down the ladder,” he remarked, as he squeezed 
75 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


with some difficulty through the narrow win¬ 
dow, “instead of giving me the bother of hav¬ 
ing to shin up outside by the ivy!” 

Then he stood up, his head almost touching 
the beam of the loft, and, feet apart and hands 
deep in his pockets, confronted Chris, who was 
cringing in a dark and cobwebby corner, with 
“Well?” 

That challenging “Well?” seemed to Chris 
ominous. She could not bring herself to re¬ 
spond to it, and Pat, finding she did not 
answer, remarked plaintively, “Next time you 
want to take me prisoner, you might give a 
fellow a chance to put up his hands and cry 
‘Kameradl’ before you proceed to drastic 
measures!” 

“Pat,” Chris blurted out falteringly, “I’m 
most frightfully, beastly sorry, and I simply 
can’t tell you what an awful, unspeakable idiot 
I feel! I don’t like to think how long you 
were there—but we were all alone, Mrs. Ridd 
and Molly and I, without even the dogs-” 

“No, you weren’t—I’d left Tweedledum be- 
76 



PAT 


hind; there’ll always be a dog on hand if Father 
and I are both out,” Pat assured her. 

“Well, I didn’t know that,” said Chris 
humbly, “and I caught sight of you when you’d 
said you would be out, and thought you were 
a—a tramp or a burglar ” 

“Thought so. I guessed you took me for a 
prowling gypsy or something of that sort. 
Most awfully flattered, don’t you know!” Pat 
drawled. 

Chris dared not look at him. “I d—didn’t 
see your face,” she faltered, “and you’d said 
you wouldn’t be back before nine for cer¬ 
tain-” 

“Father sent me back to fetch something 
from the tool-house—and it never occurred to 
me that I should be likely to scare any of you 
to death. I suppose I hadn’t made enough 
allowance for my ruffianly appearance!” Pat 
retorted. 

Something in his tone made Chris look up at 
last—and catch her breath with wonder and 
relief. For the lines about Pat’s strong close¬ 
shutting mouth were humorous rather than 
77 




SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
grim, and his clear grey eyes were gleaming 
with unmistakable fun. 

“Pat!” she gasped. “Aren’t—aren’t you 
mad with me after all? You know it was 
really an accident? You don’t believe that I 
meant to-” 

“Believe you did it on purpose, knowing it 
was me? ‘Why no, sir! For although I am 
a fool, there is a limit to my foolery,’ ” Pat 
quoted from Yeomen of the Guard, 

His look, tone, and gesture had taken on, 
inimitably, those of Point the Jester; but Chris 
could not laugh as yet. 

“I’m most fearfully sorry, and I’ve never 
done such an abominably idiotic thing before 
in all my life!” she blundered on abjectly, “and 
oh, you poor old boy, how utterly sick of it 
you must have been—and aren’t you nearly 
frozen?” 

“Not quite; but I’m jolly nearly starved,” 
Pat admitted between bites of the apple he had 
picked up and was ravenously munching. 

“Oh, I was forgetting—^you’ve been up for 
hours and hours and not even had breakfast 
78 



PAT 


yet!” cried Chris, with a gesture which was 
almost tragical. “Do come in quick and let 
me get you something to eat anyway!” 

She made a dart for the ladder, hut Pat 
was before her; not waiting for its assistance, 
he leapt down through the trap-door and stood 
below, laughing and holding up his arms. 

“Jump!—I’ll catch you,” he commanded. 

If he had ordered her to jump out of the 
apple-loft window and had not stood to catch 
her, Chris would almost have been ready to 
obey him at that moment; Pat swung her 
lightly to her feet, and they raced together 
across the snowy garden to the farm kitchen, 
where Pat thawed himself at the fire while 
Chris waited on him hand and foot as he satis¬ 
fied a famished appetite. She would almost 
have abased herself before him if he had not 
persisted in treating the matter as a joke; but 
as it was, she found herself laughing with him 
in the relieving consciousness that they were 
better friends than ever. Indeed, the comical 
adventure, coming as an antidote to the trag¬ 
edy of yesterday, had done them both good. 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

and Chris had never known Pat seem so much 
of a boy—had not, in fact, realized before how 
very young he really was—albeit her heart 
smote her when she saw how for all his fun 
he was stifling weary yawns. 

“You’re simply tired out with that sickening 
wait in the shed,” she said self-reproachfully. 

“It isn’t th—a—at.” Pat bit back a great 
yawn. “It’s because I didn’t sleep an awful lot 
last night.” He met her accusing eyes, and 
confessed guiltily, “Fact is, I didn’t go to 
bed.” 

“Pat! Why on earth-” cried Chris, 

horrifled. 

“Molly. We didn’t know how she was going 
to be, and I thought I might be wanted to— 
stay with her, p’r’aps, or ring up the doctor, 
or—something or another; so I just sat up 
here and dozed in a chair with my clothes on,” 
Pat explained; adding quickly, “It was per¬ 
fectly all right.” 

“While I, selflsh pig, slept like a log all 
night!” said Chris remorsefully. “I say, 
couldn’t you make it up a bit now—^have a 
80 



PAT 


good nap before you go on with your work?” 

“My good kid! Do you think IVe got un¬ 
limited time on my hands?” laughed Pat, who 
was hurriedly finishing his hasty meal. “I’m 
two hours behindhand as it is, thanks to your 
little trap to catch a burglar, and it’ll make 
a simply frantic rush.” He rose as he spoke, 
and added concernedly, “Only wish we had 
got a bit more time, Chris, because then Father 
and I could be about with you while poor old 
Molly can’t, and make it a bit less slow for you. 
It’s rotten luck for you that she should be laid 
up just now—you’ll be bored stiff, I’m afraid, 
with only me I” 

But Chris nodded reassurance at him, her 
eyes meeting his. “That’s all right!” she said, 
“I don’t see myself getting bored with ‘only 
you.’ ” 

In return for the compliment, Pat, at the 
door, made her the elaborate bow of an old- 
time courtier. Then he went off to his heavy 
farm-work, and Chris gazed after him with a 
look which Patty, alias “Podge,” Summers, a 
Wyngarth junior who heroine-worshipped 
81 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

Chris Gilmour at school, would have given her 
chance of her Third Eleven colours to have 
earned. 

“How he could take it like that!” she mur¬ 
mured. 

Molly, when she was well enough to hear the 
story of the Amateur Housebreaker, as Pat 
styled himself, and Chris’s gallant attempt at 
the defence of “Hallowdene,” laughed at it 
so much that Chris feared she would exhaust 
herself. “It’s too f—f—funny for words!” she 
gurgled, lying back on her pillows weak with 
the helpless mirth of convalescence. “Poor old 
Pat! Oh, Chris, what a study your face must 
have been when you looked through the hole 
and saw it was only him!” 

“I made sure he would be tearing mad with 
me,” Chris admitted, “and I can’t imagine 
why he wasn’t, for though I like him awfully, 
I certainly should have thought”—she recalled, 
as she spoke, Pat’s brief, decisive colloquy with 
young Broughton concerning “right of way” 
—“he’d got a temper of his own.” 

“So he has—hasn’t he just!” Molly assured 
82 


PAT 


her darkly, from the depths of her sisterly 
experience, “but he wouldn’t show it over that 
sort of thing. You see, Chris, he knew you 
didn’t mean to do it—that you only shut him 
up by mistake—and I expect he saw, too, how 
awfully sorry you were; and over anything 
like that, that he knew was just accidental 
really, Pat would be a dear, just as you say he 
was. It’s quite other things that would make 
him really angry. Such as? Oh, well—if you 
broke your word to him, for instance, or if 
he’d trusted you over something and you’d let 
him down.” 

‘T see,” Chris said, and registered a mental 
vow that in neither of the two ways Molly 
mentioned would she ever forfeit Pat’s esteem. 
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t ever do that.” 


CHAPTER X 


**NEEDS MUST, WHEN-” 

“ FTER!” Pat announced about a week 



after that conversation, after knock¬ 
ing a postman’s knock at Molly’s 


door. 


He came into the room where Molly, who 
had reached the stage of wanting to be useful 
again, which was, with her, one of the first and 
surest signs of convalescence, was doing the 
family darning, propped up on her pillows, 
while Chris, in the window-seat, read David 
Copperfield aloud to her, and dropped a little 
bunch of early primroses—sign of approaching 
spring—on to Molly’s bed, and a letter into 
Chris’s lap, remarking, “Met the postman as 
I was coming back from the village.” 

“Any other letters?” Molly asked, with her 
face pressed appreciatively against the flowers 
he had brought her. 


84 


‘NEEDS MUST, WHEN-” 

“One for Father from the Broughtons’ law¬ 
yer,” Pat answered as he left the room. 

Chris, however, noticed neither that answer 
nor the look they exchanged as he gave it, for 
she had recognized the handwriting on the en¬ 
velope given her as Gypsy Delamere’s, and 
eagerly opened her letter, the first she had had 
from Wyngarth since her arrival at “Hallow- 
dene.” A photograph fell out of it—a snap¬ 
shot of a game of hockey evidently in full 
swing, with Gypsy in the foreground, her hair 
streaming behind her in the wind, and scribbled 
on the back, “Wyngarth being ingloriously 
defeated by Roscombe, owing to regrettable 
absence of the Comet.” 

Chris laughed, although it struck her curi¬ 
ously that the fact of Wyngarth having lost a 
hockey match seemed of much less importance 
than it would have done before her arrival at 
“Hallowdene”—a less really vital matter than 
the fact of the first primroses being out—and 
how wide a gulf seemed now to separate her 
from the schooldays which were after all so 
recent. “Am I turning into a real country 
85 



SECRET OF HAELOWDENE FARM 


mouse already?’’ she thought; but all the same 
she read with lively interest, in her chum’s 
sprawling writing: 

‘‘My dear old Girl, —Ever so many thanks 
for your awfully interesting letter. I hope 
you haven’t been thinking me a perfect pig for 
not having answered it sooner, but honest In¬ 
jun, Chris, I’ve hardly had a minute to spare. 
You see, I’ve been put on to act as substitute 
for you as Head of the Middle School while 
you’re away, and it takes some doing and 
means a most fearful grind; and on the top 
of that. Miss Baxter spent the holidays winter- 
sporting, and it’s braced her to such an extent 
that she’s come back full of appalling deter¬ 
mination to brace us, and has put on the work- 
pressure hke a steam-engine, and keeps saying, 
‘Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing 
well,’ and how she wants us all to ‘feel the 
joy of strenuous effort’ (last straw!), so that 
altogether galley-slaves had a slack time of it 
compared to the poor wretched people in her 
classes; so with all that, and the play, and the 
86 


“NEEDS MUST, WHEN 


hockey, and the gym, last, I can hardly call 
my soul my own, let alone find time to write 
letters. As for you, you lucky little wretch, 
every time I think of you and your everlasting 
country holiday, I’m green with envy! 

“I can’t write reams, as you did, so I’d better 
give you the news in brief. Let’s see!—Podge 
has retired to the infirmary with mumps, 
though how they’re to tell if it’s mumps or 
not seeing the shape her face is always, I can’t 
think; we were licked by Roscombe at hockey, 
but got our own back by beating Glencairn 
hollow, 4 goals to 1; we are doing Bohin Hood 
for the end-of-term play, and I’m to be ‘Friar 
Tuck’; the juniors in No. 2 dorm, were caught 
red-handed by Daintry last night in the middle 
of a dormitory feast, fearful ructions ensuing; 
and a certain sentimental idiot called Gypsy 
Delamere is feeling so hopelessly fed-up now 
that she’s a ‘lone little, lorn little, lost little, 
left-alone’ wight without her chum the Comet, 
that she simply doesn’t know what to do— 
except mark time until the next letter with a 
Devon postmark comes along! 

87 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

“Dear old Comet, do let that be soon! I 
want most awfully to hear how the world is 
wagging in your particular out-of-the-way 
corner of it, and how you like the farm, and 
the cousins, and all the rest of it. Well, I 
must stop, if I don’t want to get jumped on 
for being late for drill! Ethel and Pamela 
send their love, and so does Daintry. Ditto, 
and lots of it, from yours ever. Gyp." 

By the time she had come to the end of this 
most characteristic epistle, Chris was feeling 
that the gulf dividing her from Wyngarth had 
been most effectually bridged. She could pic¬ 
ture just how Gypsy would have looked while 
writing—scribbling at lightning speed, with 
her chair tilted up, and her long hair falling 
perpetually over her lively, freckled face, and 
having to be shaken back with the little im¬ 
patient gesture Chris knew so well—and a 
wave of the old vivid interest in school doings, 
and desire for Gypsy’s congenial company, 
came over her. “Dear old girl! I’ll write to 
her by return of post if she wants me to,’’ she 
88 


“NEEDS MUST, WHEN 


murmured, and passing over Gypsy’s letter to 
Molly with a “Care to see it?” took up some 
paper and wrote: 

“Gypsy, Mavourneen, —I’ve just got your 
blessed letter, and it’s made me absolutely 
school-sick—‘A wants yer, ma honey, yes a 
do!’—and the dear old school, and the hockey, 
and my part in the play, and all the old rush 
and routine (even being bossed about by 
Daintry, and having my nose kept to the grind¬ 
stone by Miss Baxter), and nice long confabs 
with you! 

“Don’t imagine, though, that I’m not happy 
here, for I am. I love ‘Hallowdene’—love it 
past words! It’s the most perfectly glorious 
dream-house you can possibly imagine, and the 
country all round is to match; and the inhabi¬ 
tants quite pass muster, too, so altogether I’m 
lucky. You remember my telling you that my 
two cousins, Molly and Pat, were the people 
who were going to matter? They’ve both 
turned out highly satisfactory. Molly’s a dear 
—ever so nice and sweet, though compared to 
89 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


you, she’s a wee bit dullish, and can’t do much 
anyway just now, poor dear, for she met with 
a horrid accident the very day after I got here, 
and broke her leg skating; but rather funnily, 
considering that I’ve never had a brother, nor 
a boy friend until now, Pat’s the one I hit it 
off best with. He’s been most frightfully jolly 
to me (even to the pitch of being a perfect 
saint about it once when I mistook him for a 
burglar and shut him up in a shed for two 
mortal hours!), and though he puzzles me a 
lot at times, I like him better, and see more 
in him, every day. 

“So, you see, this is quite a nice house to 
be in; but —^between you and me, it’s a jolly 
queer one! I don’t know that I really ought 
to tell you anything of what I only suspect, but 
knowing how you adore mysteries (’member 
the frightful row you got into, when Miss Fair- 
burn caught you reading Sherlock Holmes in 
bed with a flash-lamp after ‘lights out’?), I 
can’t resist taking you into confidence. Gyp, 
strictly between you and me and the lamp- 
post, there’s something up at ‘Hallowdene’!— 
90 


“NEEDS MUST, WHEN-’’ 

though what, goodness only knows; but I sus¬ 
pected it from the first, and now IVe been 
here nearly a fortnight, and getting more sure 
all the time. 

“To start with, IVe discovered that the Gil- 
mours are most extraordinarily hard-up—more 
so than there seems any reason for their being, 
with a fine, big farm like this; and in the second 
place, they’re so weirdly independent and soli¬ 
tary—Uncle Roger and Pat actually run the 
whole show by themselves, without a single 
farm-hand to help them, and Pat seems to me 
to do the work of two or three men, though 
he’s only a boy of fifteen or sixteen. Then, 
in the third place, I’ve found out that there’s 
some mysterious, deadly feud raging between 
the Gilmours and their next neighbours, the 
Broughtons; and finally, I can see that they’re 
all afraid of somehow being forced, I don’t 
know how, to leave this centuries-old ancestral 
home they all love so. I don’t understand that 
in the least, but I’ve seen it again and again, 
and I remember, when I first came, Pat say¬ 
ing, ‘ “Hallowdene” is going on belonging to 
91 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


the Gilmours,’ in a way that sounded as though 
he were defying the Fates; and that’s what 
he somehow gives me the impression of doing 
all the time—defying, and fighting, some sort 
of fate that’s hanging over them all. That 
sounds melodramatic and absurd, but I’m as 
sure as anything that there is something—some 
mystery—something they’re all afraid of, and 
which is mixed up with, and at the bottom of, 
the poverty, and the overwork, and the loneli¬ 
ness, and the Broughton feud, and the dread 
of leaving their home, and everything. Pat 
summed up the situation for me last night, 
when I begged him not to go on working any 
more, as it was late and he’d been slogging all 
day, and he laughed and said, ‘ “Needs must, 
when the de’il drives!” ’—and. Gyp, that’s just 
exactly it, and what I want to know is what— 
what—is the driving force that’s behind every¬ 
thing that goes on here, and what mysterious 
‘de’il’ is driving Pat to work to death?” 

The pencil slipped absently from Chris’s 
fingers at that point, and her letter lay un- 
92 


“NEEDS MUST, WHEN-” 

heeded, while she gazed dreamily out through 
the window to where she could distantly see 
Pat, digging in the potato-field as though his 
life depended on the performance. 

“ ‘Needs must, when-’ ” she repeated to 

herself—“but when, whatV 

The driving-force—what was it? 




CHAPTER XI 


‘ A ^ 

A 


A STRANGE ADVENTURE 

PENNY for your thoughts, Pat!” 
Chris proclaimed the following morn¬ 
ing. She was having a solitary break¬ 
fast with him, her uncle being out, and Molly, 
of course, in her room, and it had been such 
a singularly silent meal that Chris, noticing 
something distrait in Pat’s manner and having 
more than once caught him staring at her with 
a perturbed expression which she didn’t under¬ 
stand, at last challenged him outright. 

“You,” Pat responded bluntly. 

“Me?” Chris put up her eyebrows. “Well, 
that might be flattering and might not. I 
mean, I’d like to think I was a pleasant subject 
for your consideration; but from the way 
you’ve been wrinkling up your forehead and 
looking as if you had the cares of the world 

on your shoulders, I’m afraid-” 

94 



A STRANGE ADVENTURE 

“Well, I am rather bothered about you, and 
that’s the fact,” Pat admitted. “Why? Oh, 
well, you see, it’s beastly to feel that we’re 
giving you such a dull time.” 

“But you’re not!” Chris assured him hastily. 
“It’s awfully nice here. Of course it would 
be nicer still if Molly were up and about, but 
you ought to pity her for that, not me.” 

“Of course—but still, it’s dull for you, too, 
that she should be laid up just now,” Pat in¬ 
sisted. “You see, when we asked you down 
here, we counted on Molly’s being able to take 
you about a bit, and do things, and generally 
make it decent; and now that, as it turns out, 
she can’t, poor old girl, and nobody else can 
either—well, it means your having a pretty 
thin time.” 

“I’m all right,” Chris insisted stoutly. 
“Molly’s there just the same, though she can’t 
go about just now, and I see you at meals and 
at odd times; and I simply love this farm, and 
there are lots of places round here I should 
love to explore-” 

“Only wish I could take you about explor- 
95 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


ing, but there’s such a rush of work just now, 
I can’t,” Pat interrupted in a worried tone, 
still evidently feeling his guest weighing heav¬ 
ily on his mind. ‘‘You haven’t even been to the 
sea yet, though it’s only a few miles off.” 

‘T would love to do that, some time or 
another,” Chris admitted. ‘T haven’t seen the 
sea since the summer before last, and I’d give 
anything for a glimpse of it.” 

“We might have gone to-day, but I’ve no 
time—I’ve got to go over to Fellcombe on 
farm business, and it’ll take me pretty well 
all day,” said Pat regretfully. “It’s going to 
be a ripping day, too.” He hesitated, drum¬ 
ming on the table and evidently cogitating. 
“Look here, Chris,” he suggested at last, “I 
tell you what we might do. The nearest bit 
of sea is Cludde’s Cove, about two miles this 
side of Fellcombe. So I was thinking—I know 
old Ridd’s going over to Cludde (the village, 
I mean) this afternoon, and if you liked I 
could get him to drive you over, and I’d meet 
you there on my way back from Fellcombe, 
96 


A STRANGE ADVENTURE 


and we’d have a picnic in the cove and walk 
back together. What d’you think?” 

“I’d love to,” said Chris eagerly. “Do 
let’s!” 

“Right! Then I’ll tell Ridd,” said Pat as 
he rose from the table. “That is,” he added 
quickly, with a flush, “if you don’t mind riding 
in a farm-cart?” 

“When I’ve turned into an arrant snob I’ll 
let you know!” Chris retorted scathingly. 
“Just where shall I meet you, and when?” 

“Oh, say on the cliff above the cove, at four 
o’clock; I’ll try to be there first, but anyhow 
I shan’t keep you waiting long,” Pat assured 
her as he went off. 

Chris was charmed with the arrangement. 
Although she had tried to deny it, she had 
found the quietness and solitude of “Hallow- 
dene” rather trying, in sharp contrast to the 
lively, social rush to which she was accustomed 
at school, and the time had hung heavily 
enough on her hands to make the proposed 
little change, and a definite plan, extremely 
welcome—^more especially as they would in- 
97 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


volve a sight of the sea, and a picnic with Pat. 

Old Ridd, a neighbouring cottager, the 
husband of Mrs. Ridd, “Hallowdene’s” one 
servant, proved ready enough to take her with 
him to Cludde. He was not, as a rule, a talka¬ 
tive old fellow, and beyond an occasional 
“Foine day, missie!” or “Noice bit o’ country 
thiccy be!” said little to Chris during their long 
drive together; but his brown, weather-beaten, 
white-bearded old face, with its twinkling blue 
eyes, looked very kindly to Chris as she sat 
perched beside him, and she found his silent 
companionship pleasant enough. She was en¬ 
joying herself thoroughly. The novelty of her 
queer ride in the jolting farm-cart—the sight 
of the unknown country unfolding before her 
—the bit of fun in prospect—the keen air and 
brilliant wintry sunshine—all combined to 
exhilarate her; and when they neared Cludde, 
and a blue stretch of sea burst upon the view, 
she gave a cry of delight. 

She had hoped that Pat would be there be¬ 
fore her, but he was not. However, “He’s 
sure to come soon,” she told herself, as she 
98 


A STRANGE ADVENTURE 

clambered down from the cart, lifted out the 
picnic-basket which Mrs. Ridd had packed for 
her, and thanked old Ridd for bringing her 
over. 

She stood looking after him, and waving 
her hand, as the cart jogged away towards the 
village, and then, left to herself, climbed to 
the top of the cliff above Cludde’s Cove, as 
Pat had bidden her, to await him there. The 
height commanded a sweeping view in all direc¬ 
tions; but nowhere could she see any sign of 
his approach. 

‘T do hope he won’t be long,” she thought, 
as she walked up and down impatiently and 
felt the exhilaration of the drive dying down. 
“Whatever should I do if he’d been kept or 
something, and didn’t turn up? Walk home 
by myself after a time, I suppose—I should 
have to.” 

Then she gave herself a little shake. “What 
nonsense! Of course he’ll come—he said he 
would. But I wonder if I’ve made some mis¬ 
take—gone to the wrong cove?” 

Being quite new to the neighbourhood, she 
99 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

did not know what landmark to look for in 
order to identify the place, until she remem¬ 
bered Pat’s telling her of a curious rock in 
Cludde’s Cove, fashioned by the sea into the 
rough resemblance of a man’s head. 

“If I could only see that, I should be sure I 
had come to the right place,” she reflected, and 
going to the edge of the cliff, leant over and 
peered down. 

“I don’t notice it anywhere,” she thought, 
“unless—yes, that might be it—but I can’t 
quite see-” 

Anxious to make sure, she went to the ex¬ 
treme edge and leant over, and to her horror 
felt the grass-tufts on which she stood, which 
were more overhanging than she knew, giving 
way beneath her! 

She uttered a piercing shriek, and tried to 
spring back, but too late—clutched frantically 
at a frail bush at the cliff’s edge and felt it 
break away in her hands; then, as she felt her¬ 
self falling, the horror of it brought a merciful 
unconsciousness, and she seemed to drop down 
into a dark well of oblivion. 


100 



A STRANGE ADVENTURE 


Facts began to reassert themselves—^vaguely 
at first; hazily Chris became aware that she 
was lying somewhere—of strong hands about 
her—of something wet on her forehead—of 
voices talking over her head; at first the words 
were only an incoherent murmur of sound, but 
soon she could hear clearly: “Chris—Chris— 
can’t you look up?” 

Chris opened her eyes, and looked up mistily 
into Pat’s face. It looked white and strained 
with anxiety as he bent over her, bathing her 
face with water from a rock-pool as she lay on 
the sand, while old Ridd stood by in deep and 
evident concern. 

“Pat! What—what has—^hap-” Chris 

began faintly; then awful recollection came 
with a rush, and she shuddered, and clung 
feebly to her cousin. “I—I thought I—fell 
over the cliff!” she gasped. 

“So you did—but you’re all right. You’re 
not hurt, are you?” Pat responded anxiously. 

“Iss fay, Miss Chrissie! Zay you beain’t 
killed—du ’ee now?” old Ridd entreated, his 
wrinkled brown face puckered with concern. 

101 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Chris began to laugh shakily; with the 
absurd inconsequence with which trivial 
thoughts will intrude themselves at serious 
moments, old Ridd’s request reminded her of 
the scene in Pickwick, when Mr. Wardle 
crushes the Spinster Aunt’s tender inquiries 
after Mr. Tupman with, “Don’t be a fool, 
Rachel—what’s the good of his saying he’s not 
dead?” “What’s the good of my s—saying 
I’m not killed?” she gasped hysterically. “Pat, 
I—I think I could get up if you’d help me.” 

She struggled into a sitting posture against 
Pat’s supporting arm. “You’re not hurt, are 
you?” he again asked anxiously. 

“Don’t think so—I don’t feel hurt—though 
I can’t think why I’m not simply broken to 
bits!” Chris returned bewilderedly. 

Indeed, although giddy and shaken, she was 
not conscious of the slightest pain; and, trying 
gingerly to move her limbs, she found that to 
do so was perfectly painless and easy. 

“How did you find me?” she asked faintly. 

“I’d just met Ridd outside the village, and 
we heard you scream, and ran,” Pat returned 
102 


A STRANGE ADVENTURE 


concisely. He would not have cared to de¬ 
scribe what his sensations had been as he raced 
towards that cry. 

“Then I did fall over, really! I was begin¬ 
ning to think I’d dreamed it,” Chris returned 
bewilderedly, having satisfied herself that her 
bones were thoroughly whole. “I thought I 
should be killed—and how can I not be even 
hurtV 

She looked shudderingly at the frowning 
cliff and jagged rocks beneath. “I suppose it 
must have been falling on the soft sand that 
saved me,” she marvelled. “But I can’t see 
why I didn’t go on the rocks!” 

“Whoy, Miss Chrissie, yeou zee-” old 

Ridd began. 

“And anyway I shouldn’t have thought 
even sand was as soft as that,” Chris inter¬ 
rupted ; and then her glance travelled to a bush 
which lay on the rocks, its roots looking as 
though it had been recently uprooted—and she 
remembered noticing a bush growing on a 
ledge which jutted out about half-way down 
the cliff. “Pat!” she exclaimed. “Do you think 
103 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

I could have been caught on thatj and broken 
my fall that way?” 

“Whoy, Miss Chrissie-” old Ridd began 

again, and it seemed to Chris that Pat’s face 
had a curious expression in it for a moment 
before he answered, “Yes; you did.” 

“Then I suppose the bush must have given 
way slowly with me and let me gently down 
on to the sand,” said Chris wonderingly; but 
another glance at the towering cliff, and the 
thought of having fallen over it, however harm¬ 
lessly, made her close her eyes again and lean 
back against her cousin’s shoulder. 

“Pat,” she said faintly, “if you’ve got those 
picnic things anywhere handy, I—I’d awfully 
like some tea!” 

“Oi zeed the basket on the cliff, Mus’ Pat— 
Oi’ll fetch it,” old Ridd volunteered. 

Chris leant back against the rocks—Pat 
having insisted on making his coat into a pillow 
for her—and watched in dreamy exhaustion 
while her cousin got ready the picnic tea. It 
revived her so much that her elastic spirits soon 
reasserted themselves, even to the point of her 
104 



A STRANGE ADVENTURE 


declaring herself fit to walk home; but this Pat 
utterly refused to permit her to attempt, insist¬ 
ing that she should allow herself to be driven 
back as she had come, and Chris was soon 
obliged to realize that he was right—indeed, by 
the time they reached “Hallowdene” she was 
fit for nothing but bed. 

Her surprising freedom from injury still 
mystified her; indeed, she almost made up her 
mind, with the wisdom of a doctor’s daughter, 
that in default of any other damage she must 
be suffering from concussion—‘Tor I could 
have that and not feel it till later on,” she told 
herself rather nervously as she fell asleep. But 
when she awoke in the morning, after a long, 
restoring night of unbroken repose, she had 
not even a headache, nor so much as a bruise 
about her. 

‘T believe I must be a sort of freak—a 
‘curious case,’ like the ones Dad tells about,” 
she thought, as she sat up among her pillows 
to partake luxuriously of the breakfast kind 
old Mrs. Ridd had insisted on bringing up to 
her, and reflected with pleasure on the thrilling 
105 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

letters she would be able to write about her 
adventure, both home and to Gypsy Delamere. 
‘T don’t see how I can have had such an awful 
fall as that, even with the bush to break it, 
and not be hurt a bit—and yet I’m not. I can’t 
make head or tail of itl” 


CHAPTER XII 
WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


P 


AT! Where be gwine tu?” 


Chris put the question, next day 
but one, in her best imitation of Mrs. 


Ridd’s Devonshire drawl, because she had come 
upon Pat, looking comparatively tidy and 
foraging in the pantry, and knew that the two 
portents probably boded some all-day expedi¬ 


tion. 


“Market, of course; it’s Wednesday. Want 
me to do anything for you in Dunster?” 

“No, thanks. Have you got food and every¬ 
thing you want?” 

“Yes—that is, no. Where’s my book ? Had 
it just now.” Pat was looking round wildly. 

“This one?” Chris picked up a volume of 
advanced mathematics and tossed it to him; 
she was aware that whenever possible—when 


107 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
walking slowly behind the cattle or up on the 
hillsides for long hours watching the sheep— 
Pat was generally studying hard. ‘T say, 
what a day of it you’ll have altogether!—be¬ 
cause I know you’ve been boning for hours 
already. What time did you get up?” 

“’Bout four; I wanted to get everything 
going before I started for Dunster.” Pat was 
cramming the book into one pocket and a 
hunch of bread and cheese into another, and 
preparing to depart. 

“But must you tramp all the way there?” 
Chris urged, following him to the door. 

“Yes—and back too, if Father gets the 
sheep he wants and I have to drive them in. 
But why not?” Pat demanded, answering the 
protest in her voice. 

“Because it’s a good twelve miles each way, 
and you’ll be in for a terrifically hard day 
anyway, and have been at it since four!” Chris 
pointed out. “You look fagged already.” 

“Do I ? Oh, well, it’s nothing—got a bit of a 
head to-day, that’s all. So long!” Pat returned, 
and departed. 


108 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


But Chris looked after him rather anxiously. 
“The boy’s knocking himself up,” she said to 
herself with the concern of a grandmother. 
“Nobody could keep up the strain Pat’s run¬ 
ning under for ever; he’s driven from morning 
till night.” 

But although a fortnight had elapsed since 
her letter to Gypsy Delamere, she seemed no 
nearer finding out what was the “driving 
force” which spurred Pat on; the month she 
had now spent at “Hallowdene” had not served 
to clear up the mystery, only to convince her 
more and more clearly of its existence. 

She had never liked to ask Pat himself, 
point-blank, for an explanation, feeling some¬ 
how that he was not a person to press for 
confidences, and had refrained from question¬ 
ing his sister, because Molly, although practi¬ 
cally restored to health in herself, was still 
helpless enough to seem an invalid, and there¬ 
fore one who must not be bothered. But she 
had not been able to help watching, wondering, 
and speculating during that long, queer, quiet 
month at “HaDowdene.” 

109 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

Most of that morning she spent in Molly’s 
room, sewing and reading aloud; in the after¬ 
noon Molly urged her to go for a walk, but the 
wintry solitudes did not allure, and she was 
glad to come back to an early tea and hope for 
the return of Pat to enliven matters; but he 
did not appear, and it was not until so late that 
she had begun to wonder at his absence that 
she heard his step, with an unaccustomed drag 
in it, coming up the path. 

Chris was making toast at the hall fire for 
his delectation, and did not look round as he 
came in; but his coming was a relief, and she 
was eager for company. “Hallo, Pat, how late 
you are! Did you walk both ways ? What sort 
of day have you had? Aren’t you tired?” she 
began volubly. 

“Yes—oh, all right—am a bit,” Pat an¬ 
swered, with unusual brevity. 

The weary monosyllabic answers made Chris 
turn quickly and look at him. The boy had 
dropped heavily on to the ingle-nook seat 
beside her and leant his head back against it; 
every line of his attitude bespoke utter fatigue, 
110 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


and even the glow of the firelight did not pre¬ 
vent Chris from seeing how white and drawn 
his face looked, with dark shadows under the 
half-closed eyes. “Dead beat,” Chris said to 
herself, recalling her own sensations on a cer¬ 
tain day at Wyngarth when an examination in 
the morning had been succeeded by an arduous 
hockey-match in the afternoon, and said aloud, 
“You’re done up, old boy. You want your 
tea.” 

She brought him tea and buttered toast; but 
Pat, eagerly accepting the one, declined the 
other. “Not hungry, thanks,” he apologized, 
evidently trying to speak naturally. “I’m 
awfully thirsty, though. More tea, please.” 

Chris, refilling his cup, looked at him anx¬ 
iously. “Anything wrong? How’s the headache 
you said you had this morning?” she sympa¬ 
thized. 

“Oh—rather a nuisance, thanks.” Pat, 
hastily gulping his second cup of tea, stood up 
—wearily heaving himself to his feet in a 
way it hurt Chris to see—and, taking some 
books from a drawer, threw them on the table, 
111 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


and sat down as though preparing to set to 
work. 

“What’s that?” Chris asked, although she 
guessed. 

“Mill accounts,” Pat answered briefly, 
opening a book. 

Chris’s heart sank. She knew what he 
meant; she was aware that Pat—^to “make a 
bit,” as he said—had undertaken, as a small 
“overtime” post, the keeping of the neighbour¬ 
ing miller’s accounts. But to-night- 

“Pat,” she protested, ''must you do that 
to-night? If you’ve got a headache already, 
you’ll make it ten times worse stewing your 
brain over figures.” 

“Can’t help it. These have to go in to-mor¬ 
row,” Pat answered, without even looking up, 
opening a book. 

Chris sat looking at him in despair, aware 
that no amount of protest would be likely 
to avail anything, since whatever Pat’s good 
qualities might be, docility was certainly not 
one of them, but hardly able to refrain from 
all protest notwithstanding. “He’s making 
112 



WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 

himself ill,” she thought. “Up since four and 
slogging all day, and walking twenty-four 
miles, and now at it again over brain-work— 
and that sort of thing going on day after day 
and week after week—a grown man couldn’t 
stand it, let alone a boy like Pat. And if he 
does get ill, what on earth will happen? 
What-” 

‘T say, Chris,” Pat’s voice broke in irritably 
upon her gloomy meditations, “I wish to good¬ 
ness you wouldn’t sit looking at me with that 
dying-duck-in-thunder expression! What the 
dickens is the matter?” 

There was more ill-temper in his tone than 
she had ever heard there before; but the next 
moment he was begging her pardon. “Sorry, 
old thing! I know I’m a brute to-night; but 
my head’s simply splitting, and it’s making me 
want to snap anybody else’s off,” he apolo¬ 
gized, stretching out his hand to her across the 
table. 

“That’s all right. Poor old boy!” Chris 
responded. “Look here, Pat—^why couldn’t I 
do the mill accounts for you for once? Do let 
113 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

me try!—after all, accounts are only maths., 
and I was supposed to be good at maths, at 
Wyngarth.” 

She saw a look of irrepressible relief come 
into his eyes. “That’s frightfully decent of 
you!” he said gratefully. “Don’t like to shift 
it on to you, but—I am beastly fagged to¬ 
night. Sure you wouldn’t mind?” 

For answer, Chris drew his books towards 
her, glowing with pride and pleasure in her 
ability to come to the rescue! But alas! it 
was one thing to work out algebraical prob¬ 
lems at Wyngarth, and another to understand 
up-to-date bookkeeping. For five desperate 
minutes she struggled with the intricacies of 
double and single entry, and then heard Pat 
say, “Can’t tackle it, can you?” 

Chris looked up despairingly. “No—it’s 
no good!” she said. “I can’t help you over this, 
Pat, any more than I’ve been capable of doing 
Molly’s cooking and things while she’s been 
ill; it seems to me that all they have taught me 
at Wyngarth is a lot of things that are no 
earthly use!” 


114 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


“Oh, rot!” Pat responded, returning to 
the work he had surrendered to her. “Thanks 
awfully for trying.” 

Chris ventured no further protest. She went 
miserably back to the chimney-corner, and sat 
with a book she did not read, furtively watch¬ 
ing Pat, the only sound either made being the 
scratch of his pen and the rustle of the pages 
he turned over. Once she asked him, “Got 
much more to do?” and his answer, “ ’Bout 
three-quarters,” did not soothe her. It seemed 
to her that an eternity passed before she at 
last saw him push back his books and stand up. 

“Finished?” she asked thankfully. 

“H ’m, that’s done.” Pat spoke rather daz¬ 
edly, and put up his hand to his head. “And 
now I’ve just got to see to-” 

But Chris was before him at the door. 
“You’re simply not going to do another single 
thing,” she said almost passionately, “until 
you’ve had a bit of a rest. Don’t be an idiot, 
Pat! What on earth’s the good of knocking 
yourself up on purpose? Surely the work can 
wait?” 


115 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


“All right, all right!” Pat glanced at his 
watch, trying to force a laugh. “I can wait 
for an hour, if you like—don’t get into such a 
stew about it.” He threw himself down on 
the settle as he spoke, saying wearily, “I’m 
nearly dead asleep. If I do drop off, you’ll 
be sure to wake me, won’t you, an hour from 
now?” 

Chris promised, ready to agree to anything 
which would induce him to rest, with a delicious 
motherly sense of taking care of him; in a few 
minutes the boy was yawning, and before long 
his steady breathing told Chris that he was 
sound asleep. 

“I hope he’ll wake up of his own accord 
by the end of the hour,” she thought. “I should 
hate to have to call him.” 

But when, at the end of the allotted time, 
she came reluctantly to keep her word and 
rouse Pat, she found him still sleeping, the 
heavy, moveless sleep of real exhaustion. 

She bent over the settle, loth to disturb him, 
however gently. The boy had hardly stirred, 
and was still lying as she had left him, with one 
116 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIOlSrS 

arm thrown up over his head and the other 
hand hanging limply down; his face looked 
white and worn, the lines of pain and fatigue 
were still visible about his forehead and mouth, 
and from time to time he moaned a little, but 
still slept on, utterly spent. 

‘T can’t wake him up and send him back to 
his work,” Chris thought. ‘T simply can’t!” 

She knew that if she did not, no one else 
was likely to do so, since Molly did not as yet 
come downstairs, and Mr. Gilmour was away 
for the night on business; and she was still too 
unused to farm ways to realize how impera¬ 
tive the call to work at a certain hour might be. 

‘T know I promised to wake him, but I 
can explain to him, when he does wake, how it 
was that I simply couldn’t,” she thought. “It 
can’t matter so awfully if he does let things 
go just for once—^just this one evening—and 
it’s only common sense to let him have his 
sleep out, when he’s all but ill for the want 
of it.” 

She nodded laughing defiance at the sleeper 
as she tiptoed away. “You can be as furious 
117 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


with me as you like afterwards,” she mur¬ 
mured, “but you’re going to have a thorough 
good rest for once, sir, in spite of yourself.” 

And so it was that, with the best intentions 
in life, Chris did both the very things against 
which Molly had warned her in her dealings 
with Pat—^broke her word to him, and betrayed 
the trust he had placed in her. 


CHAPTER XIII 


CONSEQUENCES DIRE! 


B edtime came, and Pat had not 
awakened. “And I simply won’t call 
him,” Chris decided. “If he sleeps 
half the night here it won’t hurt him, so long 
as he’s warm.” 

She fetched a thick rug and tucked it softly 
round Pat, carefully made up the fire with 
peat, which she knew would burn all night, 
and then, with a laughingly whispered “Good¬ 
night, old boy!” left him and went up to bed. 

“Wonder when he’ll wake up, and if he’ll 
be awfully wild?” was almost her own last 
drowsy thought that night. 

She awoke in the morning with a sense of 
chill which made her snuggle in bed and pull 
up an extra blanket. “Ugh! what a nipping 
morning,” she thought. “There must be a 
hard frost again—yes, the window’s thick with 
119 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


ice—it seems as though it were never going to 
be really spring this year, in spite of those 
early primroses, and the baby lambs Pat 
showed me! I wonder if he’s out already, and 
what time he woke up and went to bed?” 

It was partly curiosity on these points which 
made her defy the cold and hasten to get up. 
She hurried downstairs, wondering whether 
she might be in time to join Pat at breakfast; 
but on reaching the hall downstairs she checked 
suddenly, startled and half-laughing. For her 
cousin was still lying stretched out on the settle, 
as though he had not waked since she had left 
him the evening before. 

“He must have practically slept the clock 
round,” Chris thought; “poor boy, that shows 
he was simply played out! I’m awfully glad 
I didn’t call him—a night like that will have 
done him all the good in the world.” 

It had, she could see, as she bent over him; 
the white, worn-out look had gone from the 
boyish face, and he looked rested and like 
himself again. 

“I shouldn’t wonder if that’s saved him a 


120 


CONSEQUENCES DIRE! 

real breakdown,” Chris reflected, ‘‘though he 
can wake up now as soon as he likes.” 

And as if in response to her thought, Pat 
suddenly stirred and sighed, and, opening his 
eyes, smiled up at her. It was evident that he 
thought she had come to rouse him from his 
brief nap as arranged, for he said drowsily, 
“Is the hour up ? Right-o I” 

Then he seemed to become conscious of 
something unexpected, for he murmured, 
yawning and stiU half asleep, “It’s awf’ly light 
—^must be a bright moon.” 

Chris laughed, though rather nervously. 
“Moon?” she retorted. “Why, it’s morning! 
Do you know you’ve slept the clock round, 
straight off?” 

^"What?'^ Pat had sprung up from the settle, 
and was staring at her, with no trace of slum¬ 
ber about him now. “But you said you’d call 
me!” 

“I know,” Chris admitted, a little scared by 
his look and tone, “but you were so fagged 
out, I simply couldn’t—I had to let you sleep 
on; and I say, don’t go to work before you’vQ 
121 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


had some hot breakfast—it’s so frightfully 
cold—^there’s a regular black frost. Oh, Pat! 
What-” 

She broke off in affright, her question un¬ 
finished, for Pat had not stayed to answer 
it. At the word “cold” he had shot one glance 
at the frosty window, and then was out through 
it; not waiting to go to the door, he had flung 
open the casement and vaulted through it, and 
set off running—as Chris had never seen him 
run before. 

She stood where he had left her, suddenly 
trembling; yet it was not his strangely abrupt 
exit which had frightened her, but the look 
which had leapt into his eyes as the realization 
that he had slept through the long night broke 
in upon him—a look of deadly, unmistakable 
fear. 

“What have I done?” she murmured fear¬ 
fully—“what have I done?” and then, almost 
defiantly, “It can’t matter so awfully that I 
didn’t wake him!” 

But it was no use—she could not deceive 
herself; for she had had one moment’s glimpse, 
122 



CONSEQUENCES DIRE! 

as Pat leapt out through the window, of a white 
and desperate young face, and knew that in 
some mysterious way her well-meant little 
betrayal of trust did matter terribly, vitally. 

Determined to know the worst at all costs, 
she ran out to follow Pat; it was easy enough 
to tell which way he had gone, for he had 
dashed straight ahead, stopping for no ob¬ 
stacles; his footsteps were fresh on the soft 
mould of the flower-beds and the gate was left 
swinging wide—and as Chris realized that he 
had gone towards the sheep-field, what might 
have happened struck her for the first time, 
and with horror. A dreadful fear was in her 
heart as she ran, and spurred her onwards. 

She guessed only too well what she would 
see when she reached the field, and she gained 
it to find her worst fears justified; for Pat was 
kneeling by the stiff and frozen body of a little 
dead lamb, with another, plainly dying, in his 
arms, while the sight all around was infinitely 
pitiful. By the irony of Fate, the cruellest 
frost of all that long, hard winter had come 
that night, and taken bitter toll of the little 
123 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

new lambs which would have been safe in their 
fold had Chris kept her word and not let Pat 
sleep on before his work was done. 

Trembling, awed by the pitiful tragedy, 
Chris went up to him. “Pat,” she half whis¬ 
pered falteringly, “what—^how ” 

“Killed by the frost.” Pat did not look 
round at her as he answered. “It was my job 
to see them safe in shelter last night, and I 

would have done it if-” 

He did not finish the sentence, but Chris, 
self-convicted, knew what he meant. There 
followed a long hour during which Pat worked 
desperately over the surviving lambs—al¬ 
though, alas! there was little enough to be 
done—and Chris watched him, not knowing 
how to help nor daring to offer her services; 
and he did not speak to her again. 

At last she could bear the silence no longer. 
“Pat,” she cried desperately, “I don’t care 
what you say to me if you’ll only say some¬ 
thing V 

Then, for the first time, Pat turned and 
looked at her—and from that look all the 
124 




CONSEQUENCES DIRE! 

friendly boyishness was gone; he seemed years 
older than when he had waked that morning— 
grim and haggard, and a man, 

“I counted on you-” he said. 

That was all—^but the tone of it cut Chris 
to the quick; and there came Imidly back to 
her mind Molly’s warning as to what would be 
most calculated to alienate Pat—“if you broke 
your word to him, for instance, or if he’d 
trusted you over something and you’d let him 
down.” 



CHAPTER XIV 


GIANT DESPAIR 

“IP^EFORE she could answer, a figure was 
seen coming over the brow of the hill. 

^ “That’s Father,” Pat said, and 
turned, and walked straight and rapidly to 
meet Mr. Gilmour. 

Chris followed, knowing that he meant to 
forestall discovery by confession. 

“Look here, Pat,” she jerked out, “you must 
tell Uncle Roger it was my fault.” 

“Sorry you think me that sort of cad!” Pat 
flung the answer back at her over his shoulder, 
and Chris durst say no more. She knew him 
too well to expect that he would say anything 
to palliate what had happened or to excuse 
his part in it; nor did he. The explanation, 
given to Mr. Gilmour by the boy standing 
126 


GIANT DESPAIR 

stiff and straight before him, came as a brief, 
bald statement, blunt as it could be made. 

‘You told me to see the lambs into their 
fold last night, and I went to sleep before I’d 
done it, and slept on and left them out, and 
the frost has killed a lot of them. It was my 
fault.” 

What outburst of wrath or horror Chris 
expected she hardly knew, but none came; 
Mr. Gilmour said not a single word, although 
his face grew grim. In silence he walked with 
Pat to the field, Chris following, and it was 
not until he had made a thorough examination 
into the extent of the disaster (and that the 
tragedy was not only piteous in itself, but 
most serious from a farmer’s point of view, 
even Chris could see) that he spoke—quietly 
and sternly. 

“I trusted you, my son,” he said. 

Chris knew how deeply those brief, cutting 
words had wounded, although Pat took them 
without flinching, his shoulders back and his 
mouth a hard, white line; and she rushed des¬ 
perately into the breach. 

127 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

“Uncle Roger, it was my fault!” she cried. 
“It wasn’t Pat’s at all. I promised to wake 
him, and I didn’t.” 

“Rot, Chris!” Pat broke in. “Of course it 
was my fault, Father, not hers—I shouldn’t 
have depended on her.” 

“You certainly should not,” Mr. Gilmour 
agreed coldly, and laid a kind, heavy hand on 
Chris’s shoulder, saying, “My dear, it is gen¬ 
erous of you to try to take the blame—^but 
when I trust Pat with work, the responsibility 
is his, and he should not try to shift it on to 
any one else, least of all a girl.” 

“As though he would!” cried Chris indig¬ 
nantly, feeling herself up against a hopeless 
wall of misunderstanding. 

“There, Chrissie, run away indoors to 
Molly,” said Mr. Gilmour kindly. 

His very kindness to herself, in contrast with 
his sternness towards his son, hurt Chris by its 
injustice; but Pat gave her a look which she 
knew meant that he wanted her to go, and she 
turned blindly and went. 

By the time she reached the farmhouse, the 
128 


GIANT DESPAIR 


sobs were gathering thick in her throat; the 
need to have it out by herself was strong upon 
her, and instead of going in, she fled to her old 
refuge of the apple-loft, and throwing herself 
down among the apples and the cobwebs, gave 
way to overmastering desolation. And how 
different was this from that other time she had 
taken refuge there!—for now there was no 
cheery, friendly “swineherd-prince” to come 
climbing in through the loft window with jest¬ 
ing forgiveness and turn her woes to laughter; 
no, nor ever could be again, Chris thought, as 
she lay sobbing her heart out on the apples 
laid between layers of dried bracken. She felt 
that she had alienated herself from Pat for 
evermore. 

She had her cry out by herself, all alone in 
the loft, and at last crept down the ladder and 
indoors, where she shut herself up in her room 
to avoid the company of Mrs. Ridd (who had 
returned to her household duties now that 
Molly was no longer in need of much nursing), 
and sat there brooding over the tragedy. At 
dinner-time Mr. Gilmour and Pat came in for 
129 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


a hasty meal, but Chris hardly dared look at 
either of them, and none of the three spoke 
more than a few necessary words. All the long 
afternoon she spent with Molly, who saw 
plainly enough that something was the matter, 
but, putting her cousin’s depression down in 
her own mind to a fit of home-sickness, asked 
no questions; and Chris would not voluntarily 
confide in her, for she fully shared in the gen¬ 
eral tacit understanding that until Molly was 
up and about and herself again, anything which 
went wrong at “Hallowdene” should, if pos¬ 
sible, be kept from her. 

That was the most wretched day Chris had 
ever known in her life. All through the long 
hours, as they wore themselves away, she was 
living over again those miserable early-morn¬ 
ing scenes in the field—seeing again the piteous 
sight of the little frozen lambs, and Pat’s set, 
white face as he worked over them; hearing 
the tone of his voice as he had said to her, ‘T 

counted on you-” and her uncle saying, 

‘T trusted you, my son,” in a way which seemed 
to take away all confidence, and that for a 
130 



GIANT DESPAIR 

fault which was hers, not Pat’s; conscious that 
if only she would have trusted Pat—“counted 
on him,” as he had on her, and believing that 
he knew best, obeyed him by keeping her word 
and waking him, all would have been well; 
and weighed down by such a general sense of 
guilt and loneliness and calamity as was well- 
nigh unbearable. 

It seemed to her impossible that she could 
ever win Pat back, and the desolation of the 
thought told her how supremely the interest of 
life at “Hallowdene” had grown to centre, for 
her, in her friendship with the first boy-chum 
she had ever had. The thought of remaining 
there at enmity, however one-sided, with him, 
was so insupportable that Chris thought miser¬ 
ably of writing to her mother and begging to 
be taken away—“for I’m no good here,” she 
thought dismally. “I could get on all right at 
Wyngarth, but here I’m simply more bother 
than I’m worth, and as for Pat, I should think 
he would be thankful to be quit of me, seeing 
what I’ve done!” 

She did not see him again during the after- 
131 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


noon, for he did not come to Molly’s room, nor 
in to tea; and it was not until late in the 
evening, when Chris was alone in the great 
fast-darkening farm kitchen, keeping guard, 
by request of Mrs. Ridd, who had gone out, 
over some food in the oven—playing, in fact, 
the part of Alfred with the cakes, and feeling 
fully as deserted—^that she heard a masculine 
step, presumably Pat’s, enter the room. 


CHAPTER XV 


A EIDDLE READ 

A t the sound, Chris started up appre¬ 
hensively, but sat down again as she 
^perceived that the person entering the 
kitchen was, after all, not Pat, but old Ridd, 
who had come up to “Hallowdene” from his 
cottage to speak to his wife. 

“Be you theer, Mary?’’ he began, looking 

about him in the gloaming. “Oi wants-” 

“Mrs. Ridd’s out, and I’m afraid she won’t 
be back just yet—she had to go down to the 
village,” Chris interrupted, hoping the old man 
would go, for she did not feel inclined for any 
one’s society. 

But the deep glow of the fire, in contrast 
with the frosty darkness outside, looked to old 
Ridd most inviting, and he came and stood 
beside the great open hearth, warming his 
gnarled hands. 


133 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

“Eh! but ut be a cruel cold night outside, 
so ut be,” he commented, smiling down at 
Chris; and in so doing, was struck by her pale, 
downcast face and tell-tale swollen eyelids. 

“Whoy, Miss Chrissie! What be the matter 
wi’ ’ee?” he asked in much concern. 

The question was put so kindly that Chris 
could not resent it. “It’s—it’s the lambs, 
Ridd!” she faltered, her voice shaking as the 
words brought back a vivid recollection of the 
tragedy. “The poor, darling little lambs that 

were—killed by the frost-” and she 

stopped abruptly. 

“Eh, now! Don’t ’ee cry about that now— 
don’t ’ee,” old Ridd urged, patting her 
shoulder, “Ut’s a pity, zo ut be; and them 
was foine lambs too, zo they was; but such 
things has to happen zometimes on a farm, 
sure-ly—zo don’t ’ee moind. Miss Chrissie.” 

But it was plain to Chris that he did not 
realize her share in the misfortune, and having 
once broken the ice of her reserve, she found 
even old Ridd welcome as a confidant. “But 
it was my fault!” she explained tragically, 
134 



A RIDDLE READ 


looking up at the old man in despair. “Pat 
was asleep, and I’d promised to wake him, so 
that he could go and put the lambs in shelter, 
and I didn't, so he never went. It was all my 
fault, you see—^but Uncle Roger thinks it’s all 
Pat’s; and Pat has been so jolly to me always, 
and now I’ve done this to him—when I’d do 
simply anything for him!” 

“Aye! Oi reckon you would, sure-ly. Miss 
Chrissie,” Ridd returned thoughtfully, “zeein’ 
how he zaved ’ee on the cliff.” 

“How he did what?” Chris gasped. 

She leant forward and laid an urgent hand 
on the old man’s arm. “What do you mean?” 
she asked feverishly. “How do you mean that 
Pat saved me ? I thought it was the bush that 
did!” 

“Whoy! don’t ’ee know, missy?” asked Ridd 
in surprise. 

“No!—but I want to know,” Chris urged. 
“I’ve never really understood what happened 
that day. Tell me all about what did happen— 
as if I were somebody else and not the person 
it happened to!” 


135 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Old Ridd sat down in the opposite chimney- 
corner, took out his pipe, and filled and lighted 
it with extreme deliberation, while Chris waited 
in maddening impatience for his story. Then 
between puffs he began slowly, “Well! ye zee, 
Miss Chrissie, Oi’d druv ’ee over to Cludde and 
left ’ee at the cove, zame as Oi’d towd Mus’ 
Pat Oi’d due. Then Oi druv off to Cludde 
where Oi was gwine tu—but fust Oi met one 
and then t’other, and afore Oi’d got to t’village 
Muster Pat come hurryin’ along. ‘Where be 
she?’ he called out to Oi, and Oi towd him— 
and then we heerd that shruk o’ yourn. 

“Eh, missy! Oi beain’t loikely to forget the 
look o’ Muster Pat’s feace when we heerd that 
’ere. He wus off like a streak o’ lightenin’, 
and Oi turned t’owd mare and druv her for all 
Oi was wuth—but for a’ that. Muster Pat was 
afore me, and by the toime Oi be’d at t’cliff, 
he was ower th’ edge o’t.” 

“Over the edge!” Chris shuddered with sud¬ 
den comprehension. 

“Cloimbin’ down to ’ee, don’t ’ee zee?” old 
Ridd explained. “Oi left t’owd mare and leant 
136 


A RIDDLE READ 


ower th’ cliff, and Oi tells ’ee Oi felt queer 
when Oi zeed what Oi did zee. It wus you, 
Miss Chrissie—^you’d felled ower, and been 
caught by a bush half-way down; and theer 
you beed bangin’, by your clothes loike; and 
theer beed Muster Pat, loike a fly on a wall, 
eloimbin’ down to ’ee.” 

Chris gave a little gasp; she could picture 
the scene luridly—the little, slight, unconscious 
figure, which it seemed somehow impossible to 
believe had been herself, poised and held so 
precariously above the awful void, and on the 
face of the precipitous cliff, Pat, as at the peril 
of his life he worked his way down to her, step 
by hazardous step. 

“He might have been killed!” she shuddered. 

“Zo he moight, sure-ly!” old Ridd assented, 
puffing at his pipe. “Oi thowt he would be— 
that he’d bruk’s neck; but Muster Pat, he 
sure-ly has got nine loives, as they zes. Well, 
Oi left t’owd mare to look arter herself and 
went down the path to th’ cove as quick as my 
owd legs ud carry me—and when Oi got theer. 
Muster Pat had got to the ledge where you 
137 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


beed and was boldin’ ’ee up—none too soon 
neither, for the bush had felled down under ’ee 
—and Oi stood underneath to catch ’ee, and 
Muster Pat dropped ’ee safe into my arms and 
clum down arter ’ee. Didn’t ye know nowt. 
Miss Chrissie—didn’t he tell ’ee?” 

Chris shook her head speechlessly. She could 
picture it all—could see Pat, as he held her, 
crouching on the narrow ledge half-way up 
the cliff, while old Ridd stood below, his stead¬ 
fast old face upturned, his strong, steady arms 
held up to receive her. 

“Eh! Muster Pat be a foine lad, zo he be, 
sure-ly,” said old Ridd in ruminative tones, as 
he puflPed his pipe. 

But Chris hardly heard him—^hardly knew it 
when he presently got up and left the kitchen. 
Her thoughts were too absorbing. The mys¬ 
tery surrounding her adventure had been 
cleared away. She knew now—what that 
merciful unconsciousness at the time of the 
accident had kept her from knowing before— 
how it was that she had escaped all injury 
from her fall, and that she owed her immunity, 
138 


A RIDDLE READ 


not merely to the bush, but to her cousin’s life 
having been risked for her own. For, remem¬ 
bering the bare, precipitous face of the cliff 
down which Pat had climbed, and the jagged 
rocks below, she understood the frightful risk 
he must have run, as well as she understood 
the boyish bashfulness which had made him 
glad that she should suppose her safety due 
merely to a lucky accident. 

And it seemed to Chris that the last drop 
had been added to her cup of bitterness; for 
she knew now that she owed Pat, not merely 
kindness and comradeship, but her very life— 
she through whose fault he was now in such 
desperate trouble—and how had she repaid 
him? 

She sat crouching in the ingle-nook and 
brooding over her miseries, and was only roused 
at last by a strong smell of burning, which told 
her that her resemblance to King Alfred with 
the cakes was complete; and she was mourn¬ 
fully surveying the ruin of Mrs. Ridd’s cook¬ 
ery and feeling that yet another item had been 
added to the total of her iniquities, when she 
139 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


again heard a step on the brick floor, and this 
time it was really Pat who entered the kitchen. 

He came and stood silently beside her, and 
she guessed that he meant to “have it out,” 
and felt a sense of relief even while she dreaded 
the coming storm; but she could not bring her¬ 
self to look at him, and felt that she had no 
defence to make—only waited for whatever re¬ 
proaches he might see fit to heap upon her. 

There was a minute’s silence between them; 
then she felt the boy’s hand touch her shoulder, 
and heard him say, what seemed to her the most 
amazing words she had ever heard: “Chris! 
I say—I’m sorry. Won’t you make it up ?” 


CHAPTER XVI 


AN EXPLANATION AND A COMPACT 

F or a moment sheer bewilderment—the 
amazing realization that Pat was apol¬ 
ogizing to her instead of vice versa — 
deprived Chris of speech; and finding she did 
not answer, he spoke again: 

‘T’m most awfully sorry. I oughtn’t to have 
spoken to you like that this morning. I was a 
cad. Of course I know really you only let me 
sleep on because you didn’t know how fright¬ 
fully important what I had to do really was, 
and it was jolly decent of you not to want to 
wake me, as I was fagged. I say, I’m afraid 
you’ve been having a rotten time about it all 
day, and I’m beastly sorry; but I did try to 
tell you, hours ago, that I understood how 
it was, only as you were with Molly I couldn’t, 
as I didn’t want her to know about the lambs, 
so I waited to get you alone.” 

141 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

“Pat!” Chris gasped, finding her voice. She 
caught at his arm with both her hands, lifting 
her face to his with a look in her eyes which 
told him something of what the day had been 
to her. “Don’t,” she said brokenly—“oh, Pat, 
don’t! It isn’t for you to tell me you’re sorry 
—^you, who saved my life at the risk of your 
own; I know about that now—it’s for me to 
tell you—only it’s no good, because I could 
never, never even begin to tell you how sorry 
I am! Pat, I simply hate myself for not keep¬ 
ing my word to you last night!—^but you see, I 
didn’t know why it mattered so that you must 
go out, and I didn’t think either, I’m afraid— 
at least, I only thought you were perfectly 
knocked up for want of a good rest and I 
couldn’t bear to call you; and now—all that’s 
happened is my fault—and I’ve killed those 
poor, darling little lambs, and made Uncle 
Roger think you were to blame for it, and cost 
him an awful lot of money too, I expect-” 

“No,” Pat interrupted, “that’s another thing 
I wanted to tell you, Chris; as far as what we 
lose on the lambs goes, you needn’t worry so 
142 



EXPLANATION AND A COMPACT 

much, because IVe told Father I’ll pay that 
back by degrees. IVe managed to get a job 
at the school here—correcting kids’ exam, 
papers and adding up marks and keeping 
accounts and things—and can make it up in 
time that way.” 

“But—that means more work for you— 
more than ever!” Chris protested in dismay. 
“Pat, you’ll simply kill yourself at this rate! 
You’re not old enough to slave like this.” 

“I’m not such a kid as you seem to think. 
I’m jolly nearly sixteen.” Pat spoke with a 
distinct touch of hauteur. 

“And I’m jolly nearly fifteen if it comes to 
that, but it doesn’t make me think I can do the 
work of two or three grown-up people!” Chris 
retorted, “and that’s really what you seem 
trying to do all the time-—and why on earth 
should you?” 

Pat forced a laugh, shrugged his shoulders, 
and fell back on his old quotation. “ ‘Needs 
must,’ ” he said, “ ‘when the de’il drives!’ ” 

“But what is driving you? That’s just what 
I want to know!” Chris retorted, and, the des- 
143 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


peration of recent misery giving her courage, 
she made a plunge at the heart of the mystery. 
“Pat,” she urged, “tell me! Tell me what it 
all means! It’s no good trying to keep me in 
the dark, because it isn’t all dark to me—I 
can see, clearly enough, that there’s something 
up all the time—something that’s mixed up 
with your having to slave as you do, with no 
one to help, and being afraid of leaving ‘Hal¬ 
lo wdene,’ and your feud with the Broughtons, 
and everything; I know there’s something be¬ 
hind it all, but I don’t know what it is—and I 
want to know, for how can I help you, or 
understand what matters, and why, when I’m 
groping in a muddle all the time? It seems 
mad, on the top of showing that you can’t 
trust me, to ask you to trust me more, but I 
do ask it, Pat. I want you to clear up the 
mystery!” 

Pat had listened to her outburst in silence, 
and now nodded gravely. “All right,” he said. 
“It isn’t fair to keep you half-blindfold. 
Right, I’ll tell you whatever you want to 
know.” 


144 


EXPLANATION AND A COMPACT 

He sat down in the ingle-nook and stared 
into the fire, and Chris, in the opposite chim¬ 
ney-corner, sat watching his intent face and 
waiting eagerly for his explanation of the 
secret which she now knew was no figment of 
her imagination, but an existing fact. His first 
words—an abrupt question—took her by sur¬ 
prise: “Do you know what a mortgage is?’’ 

“A mortgage?” Chris repeated. “Ye—es, I 
think so—at least, I know it’s something to 
do with business. Let’s see—people mortgage 
their houses sometimes, don’t they? Doesn’t 
it mean that people to whom you’re in debt 
like that hold your house as a sort of hostage, 
so that if you don’t pay them their money they 
can take your house instead?” 

“That’s pretty much the idea,” Pat assented. 
“And”—he spoke very slowly—“well—you 
see—'Hallowdene’ is mortgaged to the 
Broughtons.” 

Before Chris had time for more than a 
startled “What!” he went on, “It began in my 
grandfather’s time, before Molly and I were 
born. One of my uncles, who was very young 
145 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


then, was frightfully extravagant and dis¬ 
graced himself—it doesn’t matter exactly how, 
’specially as he turned out a decent chap after¬ 
wards and did things that wiped it all clean 
off his slate, even to getting the V.C.—^but, 
anyhow, it was all to do with money; the only 
way to save the family honour was to pay 
thousands of pounds; and as there was no other 
means of getting it, bar selling the property 
altogether, my grandfather borrowed the cash 
by mortgaging ‘Hallowdene’ to Squire 
Broughton, the father of the present Squire. 

“That was all right in their time, for ‘Hal¬ 
lowdene’ was a good bit more prosperous then, 
so that it wasn’t so hard to pay the interest- 
money; and, besides, the old Squire was a 
decent sort, who wouldn’t have been hard about 
it under any circs. But you see, Chris, the 
present one—^his son— isn't\ not by a lot! He’s 
a grasping brute whose one idea is to make 
himself a big man in the county, and he’d give 
simply anything to have our property, which 
joins on to his, and a show place like this queer 
old house—and to add to that, he’s had no end 
146 


EXPLANATION AND A COMPACT 

of personal rows with Father over quite other 
things, which makes him more keen than ever 
on getting us—^the Gilmours—under; so he 
makes himself as objectionable about it as ever 
he can, and puts on the screw for all he’s worth, 
hoping to be able to jump at a chance to fore¬ 
close and turn us out.” 

“And do you mean he canV cried Chris 
passionately. “Do you mean that this glorious 
old home of yours may go out of your hands 
and belong to those—those-” 

“Don’t!” said Pat abruptly. “Shut up, 
Chris; I can’t stick it!” He paused a moment 
and then went on steadily, “No; that’s what 
has got not to happen. The Broughtons can’t 
have ‘Hallowdene’—not if we work to death 
to keep things going—not if we starve to pay!” 
He did not raise his voice nor speak excitedly, 
but with quiet intensity. “You see, Chris, it 
isn’t only for the sake of the place itself, though 
that matters more than any one who hasn’t 
had a house like this in their family for cen¬ 
turies can know; but Father promised both 
Grandfather and Uncle, when they died, to 
147 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
keep the old place in the family somehow, so 
that Uncle John wouldn’t have lost the Gil- 
mour home by what he did, do you see? And 
besides, there’s—another reason—Clive ” 

Chris started slightly; it was the first time 
Pat had ever mentioned that name to her. 

‘T know I’ve never talked to you about him 
before,” Pat went on, his voice rather hushed— 
“you don’t always want to talk about things, do 
you? But I wish you’d known him, Chris. He 
was such an awfully good chap. And he was 
simply wrapped up in this place—frightfully 
keen on land-work, and Father’s right hand 
whenever he was at home, and all that—and 
there’s nothing he would have minded so aw¬ 
fully as ‘Hallowdene’ going out of the family; 
and as we know that, why, it’s up to us not 
to let it.” 

“For Clive’s sake—^because of what he would 
have wanted—I see,” Chris half whispered. 

“I’m afraid I’m not much good,” Pat added 
rather wistfully. “I’ll never be able really to 
take Clive’s place on the farm—land-work isn’t 
in me as it was in him—and I can feel how 
148 



EXPLANATION AND A COMPACT 

Father sees the difference all the time; and it's 
an awful pity I’m like that, for though, when 
I left Rugby, when Clive had to go on that 
voyage (to Canada, about some business of 
Father’s), and came home to help (for though 
we had some hands then, we couldn’t afford 
any more, as every extra cent was needed for 
the mortgage-money), we thought I was only 
to be here while he was away; of course, as 
things are now, I shall stick to it.” 

“You hadn’t meant to be a gentleman- 
farmer when you grew up, then? What had 
you meant to be?” Chris asked, with interest. 

“A doctor. Dare say that may seem stupid 
to you, but it didn’t to me; I was keen. I 
suppose it’s whatever work you feel you would 
be best at that counts. And I wanted to go to 
Cambridge; of course. Father couldn’t have 
afforded to send me, but I got a scholarship.” 
—Pat flushed and spoke half-guiltily—“at 
Rugby, and I might have been able to send 
myself up to St. John’s in the same way; I’d 
have had a good try anyhow. And I’d always 
thought about all that a lot, and planned 
149 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


things. But, of course, that’s all over now, and 
it’s land-work for me for good—^unless we do 
have to clear out of ‘Hallowdene.’ ” 

“You shan’t have to!” said Chris almost 
fiercely. 

“Hope not,” said Pat briefly. “Anyway, 
you understand now how it all is, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Chris assented, feeling that she un¬ 
derstood even more than he had intended that 
she should. For she knew now that even the 
difference between her meals and the others’ 
was not fancy—^that Pat had literally meant it 
when he said they would, if need were, ‘,‘starve 
to pay”—that the absence of hired help was 
no mere “fad of Uncle Roger’s,” as she had 
sometimes fancied, but an urgent necessity— 
that the Gilmours were denying themselves all 
but the barest necessities of life to pay off 
the debt which threatened their home. She 
realized too, with what passion of purpose Pat 
had set himself to fight off the threatened 
catastrophe, sacrificing as a matter of course 
the hopes of his chosen career and all boyish 
ambitions, and taking simply and cheerily on 
150 


EXPLANATION AND A COMPACT 
to his boy’s shoulders the Herculean burden of 
this man’s task of supplying, not Clive’s place 
alone, but that of the missing “hands” as well; 
a thankless task, too, at times, since Mr. Gil- 
mour, to whom his eldest son had been all in 
all, not only felt “the difference,” as Pat said, 
but showed plainly that he felt it. The bitter 
little scene of the morning—the hopeless mis¬ 
understanding over the lambs—came vividly 
back into Chris’s mind, and she felt at that 
moment as though she almost hated her uncle, 
bereaved though he was, for not appreciating 
this other son. “They don’t understand Pat 
here, nor see what he’s worth—I’m sure they 
don’t,” she thought. “Uncle Roger simply 
isn’t fair to him, and even Molly said it was 
poor Clive who was her chum. I believe poor 
old Pat’s a bit of an Ugly Duckling in his own 
family—but it was the Ugly Duckling that 
turned out a swan in the end.” 

Pat had got up from the ingle-nook, and 
Chris rose too and faced him. “Thank you, 
most awfully, for telling me,” she said ear¬ 
nestly. “I understand now; and, Pat—look 
151 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


here! Now that I know how things are, I 
want you to let me help, and try to make up 
for the harm I did last night. I can’t do much, 
but anyhow you can quit treating me as a 
visitor who mustn’t be bothered, and let me do 
things, and try to take Molly’s place as well 
as I can. I’m not a fool—I could learn what 
they taught me at Wyngarth quick enough— 
so why can’t I learn the useful, country stuff 
too ? Anyhow, I can try, and—and fight it out 
with you if you’ll only let me. Let’s join 
forces and piill together!” 

She stretched out her hand, and Pat gave 
it a responsive, lingering grip. 

“Right-0!” he said. ''We'll carry on all 
right.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


MORE MYSTERY 

F rom that moment Chris set herself, 
with tremendous resolution and inten¬ 
tions which were sometimes better than 
their results, to help ‘‘carry on” at “Hallow- 
dene.” 

Domestic work, she discovered, was no more 
to be learnt off-hand than were lessons at 
Wyngarth! She managed to be up the next 
morning in time to forestall Pat in lighting 
the fire and preparing the breakfast—tasks 
which had been Molly’s before the skating ac¬ 
cident—and to take them on her own shoul¬ 
ders ; but an hour’s heart-rending struggle with 
the mysteries of porridge-making, and fire¬ 
wood which seemed altogether bereft of the 
“vital spark,” reduced her to the verge of des¬ 
peration, and by the time they sat down, half 
153 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


an hour late, by a smoky fire, to burnt, lumpy 
porridge (which Pat gulped heroically and 
made a fine pretence of enjoying), Chris was 
realizing that to ‘‘carry on’’ successfully would 
“take some doing,” and that she needed to 
learn the art of housewifery from its very 
ABC! 

She had the sense, however, to take her 
difficulties to the most helpful quarter—Mrs. 
Ridd. “I want to try to take Molly’s place 
until she is about again,” she explained, “so 
will you please tell me what were the things 
she used to do, and let me do them as well as 
I can?” 

Old Mrs. Ridd, by no means loth to have her 
extra work taken off her shoulders, cheerfully 
provided a list of occupations which left Chris 
mentally gasping and wondering how Molly 
had ever found, as she expressed it to herself, 
“time to breathe!” There followed a strenu¬ 
ous day of unaccustomed labour, and Chris, as 
she hustled about, under Mrs. Ridd’s direc¬ 
tions, from saucepans to dustpans and from 
poultry-run to vegetable-garden, thought to 
154 


MORE MYSTERY 


herself, ‘T shall jolly well tell Gypsy, next 
time I write, that she’s a bit out in thinking 
she’s got all the galley-slaving to herself and 
that I’m having an ‘everlasting country holi¬ 
day’; I fancy even Miss Baxter would think 
this sort of life pretty ‘bracing!’ ” 

All the same, in spite of various small dis¬ 
asters inseparable from the early efforts of a 
novice, that was a bright, busy, purposeful 
day, and really a vast improvement on the 
empty, objectless kind of holiday Chris had 
been having for the last month—a “live day,” 
as she called it to herself; for being an active- 
minded person accustomed to live in a rush, 
“all play and no work,” when every one else 
was working, had seemed poor fun to her, and 
she found it a blessed relief to have something 
to do again. She felt, also, an increased sense 
of comradeship with Pat, now that she was 
standing shoulder to shoulder with him in the 
fight for “Hallowdene”; and when he came in 
from the village late that evening bringing her 
a letter from Gypsy Delamere (the afternoon 
letters being obtainable only if called for at the 
155 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


village post office), she felt she had earned 
it as a reward. 

She could not help laughing as she read: 

“My dear old Comet, —Thanks awfully for 
your last letter, which interested me most 
frightfully. You lucky pig, to be living in a 
house with a real mystery about it! You’re 
a perfect angel to tell me, and let me share the 
secret if there is one, for, as you know, there’s 
nothing I love so much as a good creepy thrill, 
and in such a hopelessly prosaic, up-to-date 
place as Wyngarth I never get the chance of 
one—^bar two or three nights ago, when old 
I’loss dressed up as a ghost and ‘appeared’ to 
me, and that didn’t amount to much, because 
although she’d got herself up quite decently, 
with phosphorus-paint as well as the sheet-and- 
flour business, she gave the whole show away 
by happening to sneeze violently just as she 
came gliding in! I had the gumption to guess 
a genuine spectre wouldn’t do that, so I called 
out, ‘I’m going to test your ghostliness by 
seeing if this will pass through you or not!’ 

156 


MORE MYSTERY 


and flung my shoe at her for all I was worth, 
which worked disaster, because it hit her on the 
nose—which I hadn’t intended at all—and 
made it bleed, and that scared me much more 
than her apparition had done. Altogether an 
exciting episode—I wish you’d been there— 
but not exactly creepy! 

“But to return to your mystery (for I don’t 
think there’s any more school news to give you 
this time)—do let me know if there are any 
further developments! I’m sure you’re right, 
and there really is something in it—^but what 
could it possibly be? P’r’aps you’ve found out 
by now, and if you have, you simply must let 
me know. Don’t you feel awfully excited and 
weird all the time, and like the man who had 
the sword hanging over him by a hair, living 
with people who’ve got some mysterious fate 
sort of hovering? Anyway, do write again 
soon! Lots of love from Gypsy. 

“P.S.—Have you read The Woman in 
White'i because it’s simply packed with thrills! 
Miss Fisher caught me reading it in study- 
157 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
hour last night, and gave me a lecture, but it 
was worth that.” 

“Funny old Gyp! I knew she’d rise to the 
mystery-bait hke a fish,” thought Chris, laugh¬ 
ing as she folded up the letter. “She’s evi¬ 
dently got a most exaggerated idea of what’s 
going on at ‘Hallowdene,’ and imagines some¬ 
thing fearfully blood-curdling—a mere mort¬ 
gage will seem a sad come-down! I must let 
her know I’ve solved the riddle, but I’m afraid 
she’ll be disappointed at having it cleared up so 
easily, ’specially as I’ve really no more ‘mys¬ 
tery’ to tell her about,” and so thinking she 
went up to bed. 

But in the middle of the night she awoke, 
and, fancying she heard sounds in one of the 
adjoining rooms and thinking IVIolly might be 
wanting something and tapping on the wall, 
slipped on her dressing-gown and went to see. 
Peeping into her cousin’s room, however, she 
saw her sleeping as peacefully as a baby, so 
stole out again, meaning to creep back to her 
own room; but the corridor being dark, she 
158 


MORE MYSTERY 


caught her foot in a mat, and fell, with a good 
deal of noise and a startled exclamation. 

It was instantly echoed from Pat’s bedroom; 
his door opened, and he appeared in the door¬ 
way, saying in wide-awake tones, “Hallo! 
what’s up ? Did you knock ?” 

“No. I tumbled,” Chris explained, picking 
herself up. “Sorry if I woke you. Why, hallo 
—^goodness! Haven’t you gone to bed yet?” 
For she had become aware that Pat was fully 
dressed. 

“No; I was sitting up reading,” he ex¬ 
plained, holding the. door. He looked inky and 
dishevelled, and on the table behind him were 
a candle and a litter of books and papers. 

“Rut at this time of night!” Chris protested. 
“Do you know it’s just struck midnight?” 

“Has it? I didn’t notice. All right. I’ll go 
to bed now,” said Pat hurriedly. “No—I 
wasn’t doing mill accounts or anything—I was 
only just—just reading, and writing a bit.” 

Chris would not have noticed anything very 
peculiar if his manner had not been so inex¬ 
plicably guilty and-confused; she glanced at 
159 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


him keenly, and saw that he blushed awk¬ 
wardly, saying, with an obvious desire to be rid 
of her, ‘‘Good-night, Chris!” 

Chris gave him that one searching glance, 
and then dropped her eyes demurely. “Good¬ 
night!” she replied, and heard his door closed 
upon her with unnecessary haste. 

“0-ho!” she thought, as she returned to her 
room, “so you’ve got another secret up your 
sleeve, sir, have you? Gypsy, old girl, I’m not 
so sure that I shan’t have some more ‘mystery’ 
to teU you about, after all!” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


BATTLE ROYAL 


“"y SMELL the spring at last!” cried 

I Chris joyously a few weeks later, run- 
ning out into the garden. 

The bitter frost which had taken toll of the 
early lambs had been the finale of the long, 
cruel winter cold, and now, after some stormy 
days, had come a sudden burst of soft spring 
sunshine—a veritable “May Day,” although 
it was still early in March; nor were other signs 
of spring-time wanting. There was a pale 
green film of tiny leafage, now, over trees and 
bushes, and under the sunny south wall a mass 
of daffodils were nodding in a riot of delicate 
gold. 

“That you, Pat?” Chris called, hearing his 
step behind her in the porch, and bending to 
pick a bunch of wallflowers for the house. 

161 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


‘‘What a day! Who’d believe there was deep 
snow a few weeks ago? Look how ‘DafFy- 
down-dilly has come up to town!’—and have 
you noticed how the chestnut-buds are swelling 
—one nice fat bud catching the light at the end 
of each branch, and even a few fans falling 
back?” 

“Yes; and the ash-buds are as black as jet,” 
Pat added, “and the starlings begin to think 
about building. Didn’t you notice what a 
scurry was going on under the eaves to-day?” 

“Rather! I quite look forward to the bird- 
chorus I get every morning now,” Chris de¬ 
clared, with her nose buried in the wallflowers. 
“What’s that bird, singing over there? I can’t 
see.” 

“Thrush. You can always tell a thrush be¬ 
cause he’s such a monotonous old bore,” Pat 
returned, “and repeats everything he sings.” 

“But it’s the cuckoo who’s the record bore,” 
laughed Chris, “for he just makes the same 
everlasting remark—‘Cuck—oo!’—over and 
over again! I wonder what it means?” 

“ 'You —fool! You —fool!’ ” Pat suggested 
162 


BATTLE ROYAL 

mischievously, exactly imitating the cuckoo- 
call. 

Chris turned to throw a handful of dead 
leaves at him for that, and perceived that Pat 
was holding a fishing-rod. 

“Hallo!” she ejaculated, with exaggerated 
astonishment, “you don’t mean to say you’re 
actually going to frivol? It’s the first time 
I’ve known you take an hour off since I came 
here! Is it the spring morning, Pat, and a 
‘young man’s fancy lightly turning’——” 

“Molly’s orders,” laughed Pat. “She says 
there’ll be nothing for dinner to-morrow unless 
I go and catch something^—and there ought 
to be a good chance after the rain. Will you 
come along too?” 

“Can’t till I’ve got through some jobs,” 
returned Chris regretfully, “but look here, Pat, 
I’ll scurry through and then take some work 
down to the Combe and wait there, and you 
can come back that way—^up-stream—^when 
you’ve done fishing. See?” 

Pat swung off towards the river, and Chris 
danced indoors singing. “I think the spring 
163 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


has got into our heads—and it’s a perfect relief 
to see Pat do something boyish for once, if 
it’s only an hour’s fishing,” she thought, grand¬ 
motherly-wise, as she fiew to her sweeping; and 
it was with a sense of unexpected hohday, and 
in a mood well attuned to the sunny morning, 
that she subsequently, with a bundle of mend¬ 
ing, betook herself to the Combe. 

It was one of the loveliest spots in all the 
surrounding country; high wooded banks rose 
on either side of the river, which at that point 
attained to true Devon wildness, brawling 
among huge rocks in white and foaming falls. 

‘T wish I could reach that great rock-island 
in the middle, and sit there,” Chris thought, 
as she paused on the bank and looked round 
for a convenient seat. ‘T couldn’t wade out— 
the river’s too deep and wild towards the centre 
for me—but couldn’t I make stepping-stones? 
There are some natural ones already—a very 
few more would do it.” 

She dragged two or three extra boulders 
into position, and then crossed her Rubicon 
easily enough. High and dry on her rock- 
164 


BATTLE ROYAL 

island, with the wild cascades swirling all 
around her, she looked round on her romantic 
situation with great satisfaction. 

‘'This is lovely!” she thought. 'T feel like 
Robinson Crusoe. I wish Pat would come; 
p’r’aps he could sit here and fish,” and she fell 
industriously to her darning. 

Some time had elapsed, when she was roused 
from her occupation by a laugh. It was not 
Pat’s rather quaint, intensely infectious laugh, 
which she knew so well; there was a note of 
mocking insolence in it, and Chris, startled, 
looked round to perceive standing on the bank 
the person she was least anxious to see and 
most ready to regard as her hHe noire —the 
Broughton boy. 

He was looking up at her with a teasing 
smile on his unattractive face. "Hallo!” he 
said jeeringly. 

Chris took no notice. 

"May as well be chatty!” the Broughton 
boy jeered. "There’s nobody here but you 
and me.” 


165 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


“I don’t wish to speak to you; please go 
away,” Chris retorted in tones of ice. 

“ ‘Go away,’ eh?” Mike Broughton echoed. 
“That’s about what I told you and your 
precious friend young Gilmour to do, when 
you were trespassing on our private property, 
and I don’t remember that you went—any 
more than I intend to now.” 

“If you don’t go, I shall, that’s all!” Chris 
returned crushingly, rising on her rock. 

But Mike Broughton burst into a bullying 
laugh. “Will you, though?” he retorted. “I 
don’t think! It wouldn’t be so easy.” 

Chris looked down—and realized with swift 
dismay what he meant. Bent on mischief, and 
on making her pay for Pat’s triumph over him 
in the matter of right-of-way, he had quietly 
removed her stepping-stones, so that she was 
now imprisoned on her rock as securely as 
Andromeda herself. 

She was furious, and also a little frightened 
—for she was all alone in her Devon wilds, and 
entirely at the mercy of the big bully who 
166 


BATTLE ROYAL 

stood grinning on the bank, enjoying her dis¬ 
comfiture. 

“Unless you’re simply not a gentleman,” she 
said indignantly, “you will put those stones 
back!” 

“A gentleman, what?” her captor retorted. 
“Same sort of gentleman, I suppose, as his 
High Mightiness young Gilmour, who won’t 
be too proud, before long, to come truckling to 
us and begging us to let him and his precious 
family keep a roof over their heads-” 

“How dare you!” Chris cried, white with 
rage. 

“No good getting excited!” jeered Mike 
Broughton. “May as well keep quiet, because 
I’m going to keep you there just as long as I 
jolly well please, and it’s no use asking me to 
put the stones back, for I won’t. I shan’t let 
you go-” 

''Won't you, by Jove!” 

Andromeda herself could hardly have known 
a keener sense of triumphant relief on seeing 
Perseus arrive to the rescue than Chris felt 
when she heard that shout, and Pat came 
167 




SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


crashing out of the wood, and, catching her 
persecutor by the shoulders, flung him head¬ 
long into the water! 

It was shallow enough there at the edge, 
and Mike Broughton got nothing worse than 
a sousing; he picked himself up, soaked, splut¬ 
tering, and purple with rage, and made for 
Pat, who stood waiting for him on the bank. 

“You cad, you!” Broughton almost bel¬ 
lowed; and next moment Andromeda on her 
rock was thrilling with an experience more 
common to heroines of the olden time than to 
schoolgirls of the present day—^that of being 
fought for. 

There seemed little doubt how the combat 
would end, for although the lads were well 
matched in size—Broughton being, if any¬ 
thing, the heavier of the two—Pat’s habitual 
hard training told from the first; but almost 
before Chris had time to appreciate the cer¬ 
tainty of victory, she heard some one shouting, 
and a newcomer appeared on the scene—a tall, 
grizzled, powerfully built man with a riding- 
168 


BATTLE ROYAL 


switch in his hand, whom she recognized with 
the direst dismay as Squire Broughton. 

“What in thunder do you youngsters mean 
by this?” he shouted as he came striding up, 
and grappling the combatants, dragged them 
apart. 

“It wasn’t my fault. Dad—Gilmour began 
it!” Mike Broughton whined. 

“Oh, you hateful coward!” Chris gasped, in 
impotent fury, as she saw Squire Broughton’s 
riding-switch raised to descend, with a force 
which sickened her, on Pat’s shoulders. 

“You bullying young cub!” the Squire 
gritted through his teeth. “I’ll teach you a 
lesson!” 

Pat, in the irresistible grip of the huge, 
strong man, attempted no futile, and therefore 
childish, resistance; he stood rigidly passive, 
neither uttering a word nor moving a muscle, 
to receive the unjust thrashing, while Mike 
Broughton stood looking on with as much ap¬ 
pearance of triumph as the damaged state of 
his countenance would permit, and Chris, 
shuddering, closed her eyes until she heard the 
169 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Squire’s riding-switch cease to cut through 
the air. 

“So much for that, you young scamp!” 
Squire Broughton growled, and strode off, his 
son slinking at his side. 

Pat stood like a statue, waiting until the 
two were out of sight. Then he turned towards 
Chris on her rock-island, and took in the 
situation. 

“Not worth stopping to put the stones back. 
Just wait a second,” he called to her, and drag¬ 
ging off his boots and stockings, waded into 
the river and stood beneath her rock. “Climb 
on to my back and hold tight!” he commanded, 
and, Chris obeying, carried her dry-shod to 
shore. 

No further word was spoken between them 
while Pat put on his boots again and picked 
up his rod and a string of silver fish; and it 
was not until they were half-way home that 
Chris ventured on the question she had been 
burning to ask. “Pat,” she faltered, “did he— 
did he—hurt you awfully?” 

At the question Pat, who had been staring 
170 


BATTLE ROYAL 


grimly in front of him with his face set like 
a flint, turned to her and laughed shortly. 
“Huh! no. Do you think I can’t stand a lick¬ 
ing?” he retorted. “But this business will make 
the Broughtons keener than ever on turning us 
out.” 

“They shan’t—oh, they shan’t!” cried Chris 
passionately, clenching her hands. 

“Not if we can help it,” Pat assented grimly. 
“But you see, Chris”—^he was staring into 
nothingness again, and spoke in the quiet voice 
she was learning to understand—“although 
Father’s selling every mortal thing he can lay 
hands on (bar things like the old furniture and 
trees, which are included in the mortgage), we 
happen to be short of the interest-money by 
over a hundred pounds; and unless we can 
raise it by the March quarter-day, the Brough¬ 
tons have the right to foreclose.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


A SYMPATHETIC EAR 


M 


Y DEAR OLD GYP—This isn’t 
going to be a proper letter at all, 
but just a grumble, so if you hap¬ 


pen to be feeling at all humpish when it arrives, 
don’t read it or it will give you regular ‘Came- 
lious Hump,’ as it’s called in the ‘Just So’ 
stories; but I’ve got it myself, badly, and I 
don’t like to vent it on Molly until she’s per¬ 
fectly all right again (though she is pretty 
nearly), so I shall let go on you. 

“Oh, a country spring is a dismal thing!— 
which I didn’t mean for poetry, but it came of 
itself. I’d imagined it as a sunny, frisky sort 
of time of everything bursting—I don’t mean 
boilers and cisterns, but buds into flowers, and 
birds into song, and sun out of clouds—and we 
did have just one perfect morning like that; 


172 



A SYMPATHETIC EAR 

but that was days ago, and that very evening 
it started to rain, and it’s rained almost cease¬ 
lessly ever since (to a cheerful accompaniment 
of howling March gales that moan in these old 
chimneys until you feel inclined to mingle your 
tears with the rain)—real grey Devonshire 
rain, that envelops everything in a depressing 
wet blanket of cloud and looks as if it never 
meant to leave off again, and the river has risen 
and flooded the fields and the farm is swimming 
in mud and the spring flowers are all battered 
down, and if I weren’t too frantically busy I 
should like to sleep till the sun comes back! 

“And to add to that, thing after thing has 
gone wrong, and I’m afraid there’s worse com¬ 
ing. Gyp, I’ve solved the mystery I told you 
about—but it’s a pretty tragic sort of solution, 
and I can see precious little chance of a ‘happy 
ending.’ You see, about a fortnight after I 
wrote to you about the ‘mystery,’ the most 
awful thing happened. You know I told you 
about Pat, and that he was ‘working to kill,’ 
as we used to say at Wyngarth? Well, one 
night he came home perfectly knocked up with 
173 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


sheer over-tiredness, and went dead off to sleep, 
making me promise to wake him in an hour, 
but, like the idiot I was, I simply hadn’t the 
heart to do it, and let him sleep right on until 
morning, without having done what he had to 
do, and oh, Gypsy! I hardly like to write about 
it even now! for it turned out that what he 
had to do was to see the little lambs into their 
fold, and as he didn’t, they were out all night, 
and the frost came on and killed a lot of them! 
Oh, it was too ghastly—not only its being so 
tragically sad about the poor, darling little 
lambs themselves, but because it mattered so 
awfully from the farm point of view; and I 
couldn’t make Uncle Roger understand it was 
my fault, and he thought it was Pat’s and 
spoke as though he were not to be trusted— 
poor old Pat, who works like a nigger always 
and is just the best old thing there ever was!— 
and that very night I found out that it was he 
who saved me, in that cliff adventure I told you 
about, by climbing down to me at the risk of 
his life! 

‘T thought he, Pat, would simply never for- 
174 


A SYMPATHETIC EAR 

give me, but he did, and was, oh! sweet about 
it; and I got him to tell me then, when we 
were making up, what the mystery about 
‘Hallowdene’ really is, and though it’s nothing 
at all out-of-the-way or blood-curdling, as I’m 
sure you fancied, it’s beastly beyond words, for 
it seems that ‘Hallowdene’ is mortgaged to 
those horrid people, the Broughtons, and that 
unless Uncle Roger can pay the mortgage 
money—which is more than doubtful, in spite 
of the way he and Pat are working themselves 
to death to do it—^they will have to hand over 
their lovely, centuries-old home, that poor 
Clive almost lived for and they all love so, to 
the Broughtons, and turn out! It’s too dread¬ 
fully sad to bear thinking about, and it simply 
drives me mad to imagine the Broughtons here 
—they’re such hateful people; why, the other 
day, when I was sitting on a rock in the middle 
of the river, the wretched Broughton boy came 
and took my stepping-stones away, so that I 
couldn’t get off, and then stood on the bank 
and jeered me, until luckily Pat came along, 
and was giving him the licking he jolly well 
175 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


deserved, when Squire Broughton came up and 
caught them scrapping and thrashed Pat— 
thrashed him like a dog, with his riding-switch, 
while the Broughton boy looked on and pre¬ 
tended it wasn’t his fault a bit! Of course that 
will make the Broughtons more at war with the 
Gilmours than ever, and keener on turning 
them out—and just fancy people like that 
calling ‘Hallowdene’ their own! 

“And, Gyp, that’s not all. There’s a bit 
more ‘mystery’ on hand (prick up your ears!), 
and it’s bothering me almost as much as the 
other. Pat’s got a secret. I’m sure he has, 
though what it is I don’t know—^but I do know 
it’s keeping him up working half the night (I 
caught him at it once, and I’ve seen his light 
burning under his door at unearthly hours, 
night after night), and is the ‘last straw’ that 
is breaking his back; and I can’t help thinking 
it’s coming to some sort of climax, for yester¬ 
day he went off to Dunster in a funny, secre¬ 
tive sort of way, not letting me know what he 
was going to do, which isn’t a bit like him, and 
he looks strained and haggard, and altogether 
176 


A SYMPATHETIC EAR 

I just know there’s something up—something 
new, I mean, not only about ‘Hallowdene’; 
and I’m so worried about it, for I like Pat 
so awfully, and would do anything to help him, 
and how can I when I’m all in the dark? 

“I’m sure it’s not mean of me to confide in 
you about it all, because I know you can keep 
a secret, so write and let me know if you can 
think of any sort of explanation of the new 
‘mystery’; I can’t write any more now, because 
Pat is just going out, and I want him to post 
this. Love to everybody, ’specially Podge and 
Daintry, and lots to yourself from yours ever, 

“Comet.” 

Chris, who had got up early to write that 
letter, almost flung it into its envelope and 
rushed to intercept Pat, who, as she had said, 
was just starting out. She caught him at the 
gate, and perceived that for once he obviously 
did not want her. 

“What d’you want? I can’t stop,” he said 
almost brusquely. 

“Would you—^just—^get a stamp for this 
177 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

and post it, if you’re going near a post office?” 
Chris panted. 

“Right. So long!” Pat put the letter in 
his pocket and turned to go, but Chris checked 
him. 

“Where are you going?” she asked. 
“Dunster. 

“Again? Why, you went there yesterday I 
Whatever for?” Chris asked in surprise. 

She saw dark, burning colour come up into 
Pat’s cheeks, and perceived that he avoided 
her eyes. “Just—business of mine,” he 
answered more than curtly, and turning, hur¬ 
ried away without another word. 

Chris looked after him with puckered brows. 
“ ‘Business of his,’ ” she repeated to herself; 
“that’s about equal to telling me to mind my 
own! What in the world can Pat have got on 
hand that he doesn’t want me to know?” 


CHAPTER XX 


DEEP WATERS 

gone to Dunster again? Wliat 
for?” Molly exclaimed from her 
couch by the hall fire, when Chris 
took her the news of the day. 

She had now reached the stage of being 
carried downstairs by Mr. Gilmour every day, 
and was looking forward to trying the tempo¬ 
rary crutches the doctor had promised to bring 
her next time he came, and to being as well and 
active as ever in a short time; indeed, she 
seemed already so well in herself, and looked 
so rosy, that her father laughingly declared 
the enforced rest and holiday had done her all 
the good in the world, and made, as she had 
done from the first, a most placid and contented 
convalescent, whom even the weather Chris 
had lamented to Gypsy could not depress. 

179 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

Nevertheless, her face now looked somewhat 
troubled as she said thoughtfully, ‘‘Chris, I’m 
rather bothered about Pat.” 

Chris almost started—the words were so 
much like an echo of her own thoughts. 

“He looks so thin and tired,” Molly went on 
—“quite ill sometimes, poor old boy. Of 
course he’s awfully overworked, which can 
hardly be helped at present, but lately I’ve 
fancied too that he’s had something on his 
mind—something more, I mean, than the old 
worry about the mortgage” (of this Molly now 
spoke openly to Chris, knowing that Pat had 
told her). “I wonder what could be the 
matter?” 

But Chris’s lips were sealed, although her 
suspicions as to the existence of Pat’s secret 
were confirmed by Molly’s having also noticed 
something of what she had herself observed. 
But she would not voice her suspicions. Molly 
as yet knew nothing of the fresh troubles—the 
tragedy of the lambs, his father’s distrust and 
displeasure, and the fight with Mike Brough¬ 
ton and subsequent thrashing from the Squire, 
180 


DEEP WATERS 

deepening the enmity with the Broughtons— 
which had befallen Pat since her illness, nor of 
the serious shortage of the mortgage money, 
and she must not now know of the new mystery 
—^the midnight lights under Pat’s bedroom 
door and the secrecy enshrouding his visits to 
Dunster—which Chris now suspected; for 
while it was one thing to confide in Gypsy 
Delamere, who could at the utmost only be, as 
it were, an interested spectator of the drama at 
“Hallowdene,” to tell Pat’s secrets to Molly, 
a deeply concerned member of the Gilmour 
family, would, Chris felt, be quite another, and 
one bearing a much closer relation to tale¬ 
telling. So she merely answered, ‘T don’t 
know,” which was true enough, and might be 
taken as an answer to either of Molly’s ques¬ 
tions. 

‘T hope he’ll come in to dinner,” Molly 
added. 

But Pat did not return at dinner-time, nor 
until late in the evening; and his mysterious 
absence proved unfortunate, as during the 
afternoon an unexpected visitor arrived to see 
181 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

him. This was a youth of about eighteen—an 
“old boy” of Rugby—in the uniform of the 
Royal Flying Corps, who was staying at his 
home in the neighbourhood on a brief “leave”; 
and the absence of Pat and Mr. Gilmour was 
especially untoward, as the guest was evidently 
painfully shy of girls. He was, Molly after¬ 
wards informed Chris, the son and heir of one 
of the finest estates in the county, but neither 
that fact, nor his good looks and ultra-becom¬ 
ing uniform, nor yet the courage and coolness 
which made him a brilliantly promising young 
airman, seemed to give him the slightest confi¬ 
dence in the presence of Molly and Chris; and 
for hours the two girls struggled desperately 
to be entertaining hostesses, while Ronald 
Drake sat on the extreme edge of his chair, 
jerking out, “Er—yes,” and “Er—no,” and 
“Oh, rather!” and “Thanks awf’ly,” and all 
three furtively watched the clock and yearned 
for male assistance. 

The timely return of Pat saved the situation 
when it was becoming insupportable; and with 
the coming of familiar masculine society, 
182 


DEEP WATERS 

Drake revived considerably, and his tongue 
was loosened. His conversation, however, ran 
mainly in one channel—the subject of aircraft, 
which was evidently his pet hobby, not to say 
mania. There was an aerodrome near Dun- 
ster, and Drake was full of some interesting 
trial flights, and tests of a new kind of 
aeroplane, taking place that day and the pre¬ 
ceding and following days, and it struck Chris 
as curious that Pat should not have referred 
to the matter, having been in Dunster that 
day and the day before; but she was still more 
surprised when, in answer to Drake’s remark, 
“You ought to come over to-morrow and see 
Hiram loop the loop,” Pat answered casually, 
“Dare say I shall have a look in if I’ve time— 
I’ve got to be over in Dunster anyway.” 

It was evidently a slip of the tongue, and 
something he had not meant to say before the 
girls, for, catching Molly’s eyes, he frowned, 
bit his lip, and looked uncomfortable; but her 
natural inquiry, ''Again, Pat—what for?” was 
covered by Drake’s exclamation, “Bet you 
three to one old Potter makes a rotten land- 
183 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
ing!” and it was impossible to press the subject 
before a visitor. 

When Drake had departed—^making Pat 
promise to go fishing with him one day, and 
appointing as a meeting-place a spot near the 
Combe—Chris tried to get Pat alone, hoping 
for enlightenment; but he carefully avoided 
both her and Molly, and when Chris came down 
the next morning he had already gone. 

He came home late in the evening, evidently 
dog-tired, but as uncommunicative as ever, 
“shutting up” the girls’ inquiries about his 
doings so brusquely that the subject had to be 
dropped. Chris wondered how he would ac¬ 
count to his father for his unusual absences, 
and in truth the excuses he made were of the 
vaguest, but Mr. Gilmour did not press the 
matter; and just for a day or two there had not 
been quite so much to be done on the farm, now 
the lambing was over. But Chris had also 
noticed with pain that since the misunderstand¬ 
ing over the lamb tragedy, there had seemed a 
gulf of estrangement between Uncle Roger 
and the son who was trying so hard to fill the 
184 


DEEP WATERS 


place of that other son who had been after his 
father’s own heart, and that Mr. Gilmour 
neither sought Pat’s confidence nor placed any 
in him—^treatment which, she knew, hurt Pat 
far more intensely than any more deliberate 
punishment could have done. 

His third mysterious expedition proved the 
last; but Chris was still not easy about him. 
So long as the one dangerous topic was avoided, 
he was no longer irritable—on the contrary, he 
was evidently trying, by being especially “nice” 
to both the girls, to make up for his reticence 
on the one subject; but all the same he could 
not hide from Chris’s sharp and friendly eyes 
that he was worried and anxious to an extent 
she could not quite account for, even by her 
knowledge of the mortgage difficulty. The 
boy was absent and preoccupied, and obviously 
in a state of either suspense or some other kind 
of nervous tension, and a few days after his 
last expedition to Dunster began to hang on 
the posts in a way which was as noticeable as 
it was inexplicable; but Chris, longing for con¬ 
fidences, could extract none. 

185 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


And then, in the midst of her perturbation, 
came a letter from Gypsy Delamere which, if 
it did not exactly throw any light on the 
matter, at least ‘‘gave her furiously to think.” 
There was certainly no doubt about Gypsy’s 
having, as Chris expressed it, “risen to the 
mystery-bait” with avidity! 

“My dear old Comet,” —she had written— 
“Your letters get more and more interesting 
every time! This last one, explaining the old 
mystery and telling me about the new one, is 
frightfully exciting. My dear, I simply envy 
you your life at Torfell Combe; it’s so out-of- 
the-way and queer, with things really happen¬ 
ing all the time; and I think your Cousin Pat 
sounds so awfully nice, and just like a boy in a 
book. Fancy his having even fought for you! 
—didn’t you love it? You don’t say what he’s 
like to look at, but I picture him tall and 
awfully good-looking—fair, I think, with a 
clear-cut sort of face and deep blue eyes—is 
that right?” 


186 


DEEP WATERS 

At this point Chris could not help laughing. 
There rose before her a vision of the real, actual 
Pat—^tall, certainly, but with the loose-limbed 
clumsy height of an overgrown schoolboy, in 
rough-and-ready farm clothes and muddy 
boots—of his rough, dark hair and boyish, sun¬ 
burnt face, with its close-shut humorous mouth 
and keen grey eyes; anything less like the 
novel-hero Gypsy was conjuring up could not 
easily be imagined—although Chris somehow 
felt that she preferred the genuine article. She 
read on: 

“About his secret—of course, I can’t make 
head or tail of what that could be. But I do 
think this —the two mysteries are pretty well 
bound to have something to do with each other. 
I mean, seeing what it must mean to Pat Gil- 
mour to keep his home in his family, and away 
from those horrible Broughtons, he must be 
simply bound up in that just now; I expect 
when he sits up at nights, he’s only just worry¬ 
ing, and trying to work out ways and means; 
and so I’m sure whatever he’s secretly doing 
187 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
must be something to get money. The mort¬ 
gage money, I mean. Don’t you think so? 
And perhaps the reason he wants to keep it 
secret is, that it’s something he would get into 
an awful row about if it were found out! Of 
course I don’t mean anything really wrong or 
cheaty—^he wouldn’t do ihat\ but don’t you 
think he might, for instance, have done some¬ 
thing awfully dangerous to make his fortune 
(like the girl in the poem who ‘rides Lorelei "), 
or else laid a big wager with somebody, or 
something like that? Something he wouldn’t 
have done in the ordinary way, as a desperate 
last chancel Don’t you think, to keep the 
Gilmour home, he might do something risky, 
or even almost dishonourable, for the sake of 
honour?—see what I mean?—‘doing evil that 
good might come,’ as Miss Fisher was always 
saying we mustn’t. 

“I can’t write any more: the study bell’s 
gone. The smallest contribution in the way 
of letters thankfully received by yours ever, 

“Gypsy.” 


188 


DEEP WATERS 

Now, if Chris had been a little older and 
more sensible, she would have read between the 
lines of that letter that the deseription of Pat, 
and the suggestion of his doing something 
“awfully dangerous to make his fortune,” 
were taken straight out of the last story Gypsy 
had been reading, upon the hero of whieh her 
impressionable mind was still running; she 
might also, had she known her Shakespeare a 
little better, have perceived that the idea of 
Pat’s doing what was “almost dishonourable 
for the sake of honour” was practically an 
unconscious parody of the line, “His honour 
rooted in dishonour stood,” which had made a 
deep impression on Gypsy when dramatically 
declaimed by Erica Lawless in the recitation 
class. She would, in fine, have made due allow¬ 
ance for the fact that Gypsy was going through 
the sentimental phase of an over-excitable 
fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, fond of reading 
novels and making up stories, and ready, in de¬ 
fault of any romantic mystery in her own life, 
to weave one around the inhabitants of “Hal- 
lowdene,” with Pat Gilmour—of all people! 

189 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

—in full limelight as the hero of the piece. 

But then, Chris herself was only a Middle 
School girl of not quite fifteen, and fully as 
imaginative as her chum Gypsy, if not quite so 
silly, so that she, too, was quite prepared to 
look on Pat in a romantic light and account for 
his doings in a dramatic out-of-the-way man¬ 
ner ; and, moreover, the more she thought of it, 
the more probable it seemed to her that Gypsy 
was right, and that Pat was endeavouring in 
some wild way—“as a desperate last chance”— 
to raise the missing money, and that his anxiety 
to avoid detection did spring from the fact that 
he was either half-ashamed of his proceedings 
or afraid of the consequences. 

“But, anyhow,” she said to herself reassur¬ 
ingly, “one comfort is that, whatever Pat’s 
done, I’d ‘take my Alfred-David,’ as the man 
in Dickens says, that though it might be some¬ 
thing rather mad-hatter-ish, it wouldn’t be 
anything bad; and p’r’aps, if he would tell me 
what was up, I could help him through some¬ 
how. If he’d only confide in me a bit! Oh, I 
must try to make him!” 


CHAPTER XXI 


“SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE V* 

HRIS had hardly come to that final 



conclusion when Pat himself looked 


into the room where she was, cast an 
eager glance at the mantelpiece where the 
family letters were generally placed, and asked 
anxiously, “Post come yet?” 

“No—^there’s nothing to come; I saw the 
postman pass,” Chris answered. 

She saw his face cloud disappointedly, and 
noted that, although the eager look vanished, 
the anxious, harassed one did not; and as he 
turned to leave the room, she took courage in 
both hands. “Pat,” she said abruptly, “I want 
to ask you something.” 

The boy stopped and turned. “Go ahead I” 
he responded. 

Chris was nervously crumpling Gypsy’s 
letter, clasped in her hand. “Pat,” she blurted 


191 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

out, ‘T don’t want to badger you, but I—I 
want to know—look here, I can’t help seeing 
that there’s something up, and you’ve got a 
secret you’re awfully bothered about, and— 
and—I say, have I guessed right, and have 
you been doing something—something to—to 
help Uncle RogerV^ 

Pat stared at her, plainly startled—plainly 
taken aback also, for he coloured confusedly. 
‘T don’t know how you guessed,” he said, “but 
—well, yes, I have. I simply had to try any 
way I could think of. But don’t tell Father 
or Molly, will you?” 

“No,” Chris promised, feeling her fears con¬ 
firmed. She had hoped that, having once 
broken the ice, he would confide fully and 
freely in her, but as he showed no sign of 
intending to do so, she ventured one more 
question. “Does any one else know, besides 
me?” 

“Yes,” Pat answered; “Drake does,” and he 
left her. 

Chris, left alone, set herself to face the situa¬ 
tion and try to read the riddle. She knew now 
192 


“SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE!” 


that Gypsy and she had been right—that Pat 
had taken some desperate step to obtain the 
amount missing from the mortgage money— 
and his continued and increased anxiety 
showed that he was by no means certain of 
having succeeded; but the only slight clue she 
possessed as to what his methods had been lay 
in his last statement, that his friend Ronald 
Drake was in the secret. 

Chris tried to concentrate on that one point, 
and see how far it would enlighten her. What 
could Pat possibly have done, with Drake as 
his confidant and perhaps his confederate? 

“Could Pat have tried to borrow the money 
from him?” she thought. “He might have— 
Drake’s not a schoolboy; he’s practically grown 
up, and Molly said his people were awfully 
rich; but then, if it were that, I don’t see why 
Pat should need to keep it secret from Uncle 
Roger, because there’s no harm in having 
money lent by a friend in an emergency—I’m 
sure Daddy would lend it if we weren’t so hard 
up ourselves. No, I don’t think it could be 
only that.” 


193 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

She tried to think whether Drake’s conver¬ 
sation during his visit had been in any way 
suggestive, but could not recall the slightest, 
most remote reference to anything connected 
with money matters. Stay, though!—there 
had been just one passing reference to money: 
Drake’s casual exclamation, re the aircraft 
trial flights, “Bet you three to one old Potter 
makes a rotten landing!” Was it possible, she 
wondered apprehensively, that Pat could have 
been mad enough—as a “desperate last 
chance”—to make some wild bet of that sort 
with Drake? After all, “laying a wager” had 
been one of Gypsy’s suggestions; “and after 
all,” she thought excusingly, “making a bet 
with a friend might be awfully silly, but it 
wouldn’t be wicked. But, all the same, I know 
Pat would get into a frightful row about it if 
Uncle Roger found out; and just suppose he 
lostr 

Certainly, the fact that Pat’s mysterious 
expeditions to Dunster had been made on the 
very days of the “trial flights” pointed to the 
fact that his bid for money must be in some 
194 


“SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE!’’ 


way connected with the aircraft exhibition— 
but in what? Perhaps it was not precisely a 
wager. Perhaps—Gypsy’s suggestion of “do¬ 
ing something awfully dangerous to make his 
fortune” returned to Chris’s mind—Pat, who 
very likely knew, from Drake, a good deal 
about flying, might himself have been beguiled 
into attempting a flight for a prize!—she 
shuddered as she thought of what he might 
have dared and done, with the fate of “Hallow- 
dene” at stake. But, if that were it, why his 
continued anxiety now that the flights were 
over? 

It was no good—she could not read the 
riddle unaided—yet read it, she felt, she must; 
not from any desire to spy upon Pat, but be¬ 
cause she could not bear to stand by and see him 
getting deeper and deeper into trouble and be 
unable from ignorance to put out a helping 
hand. But although she herself did not know 
the secret, there was one person who did— 
Drake; and, determined to leave no stone un¬ 
turned which might enable her to help Pat 
out of the deep waters in which he seemed 
195 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


struggling, Chris made the desperate resolu¬ 
tion that she would go to Ronald Drake and 
beg him to confide in her. She wondered how 
to get at him, and then remembered that this 
was the day the two boys had appointed to meet 
at the river and go fishing, and determined 
that she herself would be there a little before 
the hour appointed—^three o’clock; if only 
Drake were punctual and Pat were not, she 
might find opportunity to learn all she wanted 
to know. 

‘Df course,” she thought, quaking but reso¬ 
lute, ‘T shall have to tell Pat afterwards if I 
did that—own up to him that I had asked 
Drake, however furious it made him; it would 
be spying to find out about his doings behind 
his back, if I didn’t let him know all about it 
afterwards. But I’ve simply got to learn 
somehow what he’s been doing, so that I can 
try to think of some way to help him out.” 

Pat saw her setting off that afternoon, and 
called to her peremptorily, ‘T say, Chris, if 
you’re going down to the river you must go 
the long way round, not over the bridge—^the 
196 


“SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE!” 


floods lately have been rushing right over it, 
and it might be strained and not safe.” 

“All right,” Chris returned meekly. She 
rather liked it than otherwise when Pat occa¬ 
sionally ordered her about like that, just as 
at Wyngarth she always half enjoyed it when 
Daintry Hazelwood, the school captain and 
her own private and particular heroine, told 
her with lofty imperiousness what she was 
or was not to do; but the present mandate 
about the “long way round” was trying, when 
it was so vital to be in good time! However, 
on reaching the river she saw that she might 
yet be able to achieve her purpose, for Drake 
had already arrived at the trysting-place and 
was sitting on the bank arranging his fishing- 
tackle. 

Chris approached him shyly, her resolution 
taken, but her heart in her mouth; she would 
hardly have mustered courage to go through 
with her undertaking had it not been for the 
relieving fact that Drake was in mufti and 
thereby looked more of a schoolboy and less 
alarmingly grown up. “Hallo!” she said 
197 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


bashfully, blushing crimson at the thought of 
her errand. 

Drake sprang up, ‘"capping” her politely. 
“How d’you do. Miss Gilmour?” he jerked 
out, adding quickly, “Hope you haven’t 
brought me a message to say old Pat can’t 
come?” 

“No,” Chris assured him, and being quite 
unable to think of any other excuse for her 
presence, contented herself with saying, “I 
hope you’ll have good sport.” 

“It ought to be, after all the rain we’ve 
had lately.” Drake glanced appreciatively at 
the flooded river, swirling down in a brown 
and foaming torrent. “Pity Pat couldn’t have 
come before, but he said he hadn’t time.” 

“He’s so frightfully busy always,” Chris 
explained. “I know he’s sorry not to have 
seen more of you during your leave.” 

“I’m sorry too,” Drake returned, “though 
we did just meet the other day at Dunster.” 

“Did you?” Chris caught at her cue. “Was 
that at the aircraft trial flights ? Yes ? I—say 
198 


‘‘SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE! 


—Pat—he didn’t —do anything there, did he?” 

“ ‘Do anything?’ How d’you mean?” 

“He didn’t—didn’t try to fly himself, or 
anything like that?” Chris faltered, with heroi¬ 
cally impossible visions of Pat in some won¬ 
derful aerial contest floating through her mind. 

“Fly? No—how could he?” Drake looked 
amazed, and then added, his face clearing, 
“Oh, you mean as a passenger!—no, there 
wasn’t a chance, though Potter says he’ll take 
us both one of these days. Should you care to 
fly. Miss Gilmour?” 

It was not by any means what Chris had 
meant, but she let it pass, the heroic visions 
fading like the mirage they were. “I’d love 
to,” she said, and went on hurriedly, hot with 
embarrassment, “I suppose you were just 
watching the flights together? I expect Pat 
made a—a wager about them with you, didn’t 
he?” 

“Rather!” laughed Drake, “but he lost.” 

“Did he?” Chris’s heart sank. “How—how 
much?” she faltered, sure that she was now on 
the track of the fatal hundred pounds 1 
199 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


‘‘How much?’’ Drake stared at the inquisi¬ 
tive little schoolgirl catechizing him, with 
simple surprise in his face. 

“Sixpence,” he said. 


CHAPTER XXII 


DISILLUSIONMENT 

I T would have been hard for any one word 
to shatter more suddenly and completely 
romantic dreams and castles in the air. 
Chris felt the sensation (experienced many 
times at Wyngarth, when Gypsy had saved 
her from being late for breakfast by a process 
more drastic than the getting-up bell and 
known between them as “cold pig”) of being 
roused from exciting dreams by a bracing 
douche of cold water. Just as her visions, 
following on Gypsy’s suggestion of “doing 
something awfully dangerous to make a for¬ 
tune,” of heroically foolhardy aeronautics had 
been dissipated by Drake’s matter-of-fact 
“Fly?—oh, you mean as a passenger!” so now 
his answer, “Sixpence,” scattered just as 
effectually her fear of Pat’s having disgraced 
201 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


himself by a wild bet, the imaginary heavy 
wager resolving itself into nothing worse than 
a joking, boyish “Bet you sixpence,” which 
had passed casually between the two big school¬ 
boys, and her own desperate attempt at a 
would-be rescue of Pat into nothing better 
than insulting suspicions and officious interfer¬ 
ence. The old nursery rhyme, “Sing a song of 
sixpence,” flashed into her mind—in truth, 
what a “song,” as the phrase went, she had been 
making about what was, after all, so trifling! 
In spite of all her efforts she was as far off as 
ever from finding out what Pat had really 
done; all she had found out was that both her 
melodramatic ways of accounting for his 
actions were mistaken and nonsensical. 

“IVe been making an even worse idiot of 
myself than usual!” Chris summed up the situ¬ 
ation in her mind. 

And hardly had she come to this humiliating 
conclusion when she heard Pat’s voice behind 
her: “Hallo! You two seem to be in solemn 
conclave!” 

Drake rose easily to the emergency. “Oh, 
202 


DISILLUSIONMENT 


no!” he said. “Miss Gilmour just happened 
to be passing this way.” 

But Chris would not let it go at that; easy 
as was the way of escape from confession 
open to her, she would not take it, for she had 
vowed to herself that she would not “spy” on 
Pat by making inquiries about his private 
doings behind his back without “owning up” to 
him afterwards fully and freely, and she meant 
to keep that vow, and her honour clean, at 
whatever cost. 

“No,” she gasped, her face crimson, “I 
wasn’t just passing—I came on purpose! I— 
I wanted to ask—something—something about 
you”—and there she came to an agonized halt, 
perfectly unable to make the matter clear to 
Pat; for while it would have been one thing 
to confess to him, her tried and trusted friend, 
all alone, it was another to have to explain in 
the presence of a third party. 

Pat was watching her keenly, and now 
turned to Drake. “Look here, old chap,” he 
said abruptly, “I think you’d better sheer off, 
if you don’t mind; we can fish to-morrow at 
203 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

the same time instead, what?—and just now I 
can tackle Chris better alone.” 

The obliging Drake, with a courteous ‘‘Good 
afternoon. Miss Gilmour,” but an expression 
of unqualified amusement on his handsome 
face which made Chris mentally writhe, accord¬ 
ingly took his departure; and Chris was left 
face to face with Pat, who said peremptorily, 
“Now then!—^well?” 

But Chris found that “Well?” impossibly 
hard to answer. Pat’s keen eyes were still upon 
her, and his black brows knitted as he said 
curtly, “Out with it, Chris —what have you 
been trying to get out of Drake about me?” 

“I wanted to know,” Chris began, and 
stopped and gulped. “I wanted to know,” she 
blurted out with a rush, “what you had been 
doing to try to help Uncle Roger—and you 
said he knew, so I asked him. There!” 

“That?” Pat stared at her, amazement in 
his face. “But I thought you knew all about 
that!—why, you were talking to me about it 
only this morning!” 

“No! I didn’t know—^that is, I guessed a 
204 


DISILLUSIONMENT 

bit, but I guessed wrong,” Chris explained; 
adding breathlessly, “What—what have you 
done, then?” 

“IVe been in for an exam., that’s all.” 

“An—an exam.?” Chris faltered. 

“I had just enough tin of my own to pay 
the entrance fee,” Pat explained. “You see, 
Chris, it was this way: I knew the Pater was 
getting beastly worried about having had to 
take me away from school so soon—he told me 
he was, and that he felt he simply must arrange 
somehow to let me go back for a bit, whether 
he could spare me or not. But, you see, I don’t 
want to (that is, of course, I’d give anything 
to go back if I were free—but I’m not, while 
I’m needed at home). So I thought perhaps, 
if I could pass a pretty stiff exam, that would 
show the Pater I was fairly well educated 
already, and stop his bothering himself (when 
goodness knows he’s got enough to badger his 
life out already) about my having had to leave 
off study and turn farm-hand. So I’ve just 
had a shot at the exam, on my own—see? 
That’s aU,” 


205 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


The very simplicity of the explanation, now 
that the mystery was solved, nonplussed Chris 
as much as Drake’s simple “Sixpence” had 
done. An examination—and that was all! 
Why could not Gypsy and she, instead of 
letting their imaginations run riot and invent¬ 
ing all sorts of far-fetched melodramatic 
solutions of the riddle, have thought of such a 
simple, rational explanation as this ? She knew 
now why Pat had sat up night after night, 
after his hard day’s work—simply to study. 
Stay, though! She did not know all. 

“Why did you go to Dunster, three days 
running?” she asked abruptly. “And why did 
you tell Drake ?” 

“For the exam., of course; it was held there,” 
was the painfully obvious answer. “And I 
happened to meet old Drake, the third day, 
just as I was coming out of the examination 
hall, so I pretty well had to tell him.” 

“But, then, I don’t see what it all had to 
do with the aircraft tests,” Chris persisted, still 
clinging to the half-hope that her suspicions 
206 


DISILLUSIONMENT 


had not been entirely without foundation. 
"'Wasn't there any sort of connection?” 

“No earthly!—except that the trials came 
off on the same days as my exam., and I went 
and watched the flying with Drake for a few 
minutes the last day. Why, how could there 
have been?” Pat demanded, with increasing 
surprise. “Look here, Chris, if you didn’t 
know after all that I was trying for an exam., 
what the dickens did you think I had been 
doing?” 

Chris found it excruciatingly hard to tell 
him. “I didn’t know,” she faltered, “only I 
noticed you seemed awfully bothered and 
strung up about something-” 

“Did I? Oh, well, you can’t help feeling a 
bit jumpy when you’re waiting to know the 
result of a frightfully important exam., can 
you? But I shouldn’t have been such a kid 
as to show it like that,” Pat apologized, red¬ 
dening. 

“And I knew you had got a big secret on 
hand,” Chris continued, “and you owned your¬ 
self, when I asked you, that it was something 
207 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

you were doing to try to get the money for 
‘Hallowdene’—^but you didn’t tell me what, 
and I wanted so to know, so that I could try to 
help you out, as I thought you were in trouble. 
That was why I asked Drake, though I knew 
it seemed beastly officious, and you might even 
think it was spying. P’r’aps it was—trying 
to find out what you were doing behind your 
back—but, Pat, believe me or not as you like, 
but I always meant to tell you afterwards, and 
I only did it because I ^wanted to help you 
through! I can’t say things, but—I’d do just 
anything to help you,” she concluded, with a 
quiver in her voice. 

She had spoken with passionate appeal, and 
Pat’s expression, which had hitherto been dis¬ 
tinctly grim, relaxed. “That’s all right, old 
thing,” he said gently. “But look here, Chris, 
I can’t make out what you did think I had 
done.” 

“I couldn’t make out, either, exactly what 
it could be,” Chris explained, feeling horribly 
ashamed of herself, “but as you were so keen 
to keep it all secret, I guessed you thought 
208 


DISILLUSIONMENT 


you would get into an awful row with Uncle 
Roger if he found out, or something like that. 
Of course, I didn’t suppose you would have 
done anything beastly, but I thought you 
might have—^have taken some awful risk, for 
instance—like—^like pretending to be an air¬ 
man and trying to fly in some air contest for a 
prize”—and she stopped, feeling intensely 
silly. 

Pat’s eyebrows went up, and he laughed. 
“The Complete Stage-Hero, what?” he re¬ 
torted. “Not me!—it was a simply priceless 
notion, but I’m not half such a bold buccaneer.” 

“I know—it was nonsense,” said Chris hur¬ 
riedly, “or I thought, as I found you’d had a 
wager with Drake about the flying, it might 
have been an awfully big one-” 

“Stage-villain, this time, for a change!” 
grinned Pat. “Look here, Chris,” he added 
quaintly, “I wish you’d chuck seeing me in 
that picturesquely blood-curdling sort of light! 
It’s just like the old business of the tool-shed 
and my ‘burglary,’ all over again. I’m not 
such a swashbuckler as you think—in fact, I’m 
209 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


afraid I’m an awful old stodger by compari¬ 
son; I’m like the chap in that book of Barry 
Pain’s—I ‘ain’t the stormy sort.’ ” 

‘T know,” said Chris rather miserably, “and 
I like you ever so much better as you are. I— 
I do feel such a kidl” 

It was precisely what she did feel—thor¬ 
oughly childish and silly. If the comet-like 
brilliancy of her success at Wyngarth had to 
some extent turned her head, certain episodes 
at “Hallowdene” had more than restored her 
balance, and she felt completely disillusioned. 
And all through she had meant so well! 

“That’s just what I’ve been all along, ever 
since I came here,” she broke out despairingly 
—“a perfect kid! The sooner I get back to 
Wyngarth the better; I could get on all right 
there—I’m good enough at games and lessons 
—but when it comes to real life here, and ordi¬ 
nary common sense, I simply haven’t got any! 
I mean all right, but everything I touch I 
make a muddle of. Look what a dead failure 
it was, my trying to take Molly’s place—I 
couldn’t—not properly. And when I tried to 
210 


DISILLUSIONMENT 


save the house from a burglar, it was only you; 
and my trying to rest you led straight to that 
awful business of the lambs; and now that IVe 
tried to come to the rescue and pull you out 
of a scrape I thought you were in, IVe only 
made a hash of that. Always the same old 
story! I’m no good, Pat!” 

“Bosh!” said Pat quickly. He put his hand 
on her shoulder. “Look here, Chris, old thing,” 
he began, “if that’s your notion of yourself, it 
jolly well isn’t mine! Why, you-” 

But at that point they were interrupted; 
from farther down the river came a sudden cry, 
electrifying in its poignant terror and appeal: 
“Help! Help!” 

Horror shot through Chris. “The floods!” 
she gasped—“the bridge!” 

But Pat was already running. 



CHAPTER XXIII 


A REAL RESCUE 

R UNNIN G as she had never run on the 
Wyngarth hockey-field, Chris tore in 
the same direction; but, fleet as she 
was, Pat outstripped her. “The bridge Pat 
warned me about—perhaps Drake went on it, 
and it gave way with him!” was throbbing 
through her mind as she ran, and before she 
reached it, she could see that the bridge, which 
had appeared undamaged when she passed it 
earlier in the afternoon, had indeed broken 
down; with what result, the cry they had 
heard—and now heard again, choking, despair¬ 
ing—plainly told her. 

She overtook Pat just in time to see him 
poise at the edge of the broken bridge and, 
not waiting even to fling off his coat or boots, 
take a clean dive into the swirling, flooded 
212 


A BEAL RESCUE 


river, and strike out towards a figure she could 
see struggling frantically in the turbid water; 
and there followed—horror! 

Although the rains had ceased, the floods 
were up, and the wild Devon river no longer 
a series of delicate cascades, but one brawling, 
swirling torrent, that swept on, dark and foam¬ 
ing, bearing with it great broken branches of 
trees or whatever else came in its way; it would 
have been hard for Pat, strong swimmer 
though he was, even had he been alone and 
unhampered, to keep himself from being car¬ 
ried down to the Combe and there swept down 
with the raging waterfalls—and how much 
harder if he had to guide and help another 
swimmer. 

But it was plain that the lad struggling in 
the water either could not swim or had lost his 
head to an extent which rendered him incapable 
of doing so; and on Pat’s reaching him he 
caught at him with the desperate, throttling 
clutch of the drowning, rendering his would-be 
rescuer helpless and dragging him down; 
Chris, from the bank, in an agony of horror, 
213 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


saw the two boys, locked together, go under 
the foaming water, perceived that they reap¬ 
peared only to be swept onwards together by 
the awful torrent, and realized that not only 
Drake—if it were Drake—^but Pat also, was in 
deadly, imminent peril of drowning. 

Her brain was working with the lurid speed 
only possible at a crisis. She could hear the 
distant roar of the falls at the Combe—could 
picture with what fearful ease the floods would 
fling those two young bodies over the whirling, 
foaming falls to the veritable maelstrom raging 
below, in which no man could fight. She could 
see the Combe as vividly as though it were 
really before her—and with the vision came 
the recollection of her rock-island, just above 
the falls. Since her adventure with the 
Broughton boy she had amused herself with 
making higher and more solid stepping-stones 
—‘‘which Mike Broughton won’t find it so easy 
to take away,” she had told herself mischiev¬ 
ously; and if she could only reach them, and 
the island, in time—in time- 

She was off for the Combe, racing the river, 
214 



A BEAL RESCUE 


even while the thoughts flashed through her 
mind. “Oh, God, let me be quick—^let me be 
quick!” she gasped as she ran. But a horrible 
conviction assailed her that even the higher 
stepping-stones would be covered by the flood, 
and she saw when she reached the Combe that 
they very nearly were. 

Almost—but not quite. Two of them— 
those nearest the bank, where the water was 
slightly shallower—were still to be seen, wet, 
slippery, well-nigh covered, but still visible; 
and in deadly terror, knowing full well that a 
slip would send her into the raging water, 
Chris just managed to step across from one to 
the other. There she paused, for the third 
stone was hopelessly water-covered, so that 
the island could only be reached by jumping— 
a leap that must be made across a wide strip 
of wild water, and just over the falls thunder¬ 
ing below. 

Chris never quite knew afterwards how she 
mustered up courage to make that jump; but 
she did it, and somehow, anyhow, flung herself 
215 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
on to the rock and crouched at its edge, just— 
and only just—in time. 

For the two lads in the water were at that 
moment being borne close by the rock-island. 
Pat was making a gallant fight of it, but, ham¬ 
pered by the other boy’s helpless weight, and 
with only one arm free from his desperate 
clutch, he could do little against the race of 
the river beyond just contriving to keep their 
heads above water. 

“Pat! Pat!” Chris shrieked to him above the 
noise of the cataract. Ah! was it useless? 
Must she see them swept past her to the falls 
below? 

He heard her—saw her crouching on the 
island with her hands outstretched towards him 
—and realized what she meant; and with a 
desperate effort he just managed to swerve 
towards the rock enough to enable Chris to 
clutch at him from where she knelt. It was 
then that she grasped for the first time the fact 
that the boy Pat was holding was not Drake, 
but Mike Broughton. 

Then for an awful moment it seemed doubt- 
216 


A REAL RESCUE 


ful whether she could hold him, or if his weight 
would drag her off the island. One hand grip¬ 
ping Pat, the other clutching such support as 
she could find, Chris strained back and back, 
her teeth set, her breath coming in gasps. “I 
won’t let go—I woriHr she panted to herself, 
as she fought with Pat against the awful 
strength of the river rushing to the falls. 

Just that one fearful moment—then with 
unspeakable joy she knew that her hold was 
sure and she was winning; at last Pat was near 
enough to catch with his one free hand at the 
rock, and the worst of the strain was over. He 
was close to her now, and she could release him 
from the choking grip of the boy clutching 
him; that left him free, and little by little, with 
Chris’s help, he was able to drag himself and 
Mike Broughton on to the island. Young 
Broughton lay huddled up on the rock, help¬ 
less, unconscious, where his rescuers laid him 
down, as Pat struggled to his feet. It was yet 
no time for thanks or exclamations. “We must 
get him on to the bank somehow. I’ll fetch 
some more stones,” said Pat hurriedly, and 
217 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Chris shuddered as she saw him leap the chasm 
she had had to cross; but he was sure-footed 
and more accustomed to the rocks than she, 
and reached the shore safely without slipping. 
Then he set to work like a young giant, drag¬ 
ging loose boulders into place in the river-bed, 
until an impromptu bridge was formed over 
which they were able to drag Mike Broughton 
to the bank. 

There they laid him down on the grass, and 
Chris bent over the unconscious boy, gazing 
fearfully into the white face. “Oh, Pat! Is 
he—is he ” she half whispered tremblingly. 

“I—don’t know,” Pat whispered back, his 
voice awed, as he knelt down by the enemy he 
had risked his own life to rescue, and set to 
work on the simple processes of “First Aid to 
the Drowning.” “But watch me, Chris, and 
do what you see me do.” 

The workings of Fate are very strange! The 
feud between the Gilmours and the Brough¬ 
tons had been long, deep, and inexpressibly 
bitter, and had come to its sharpest climax at 
that very place, the Combe; and ever since that 
218 



A REAL RESCUE 


episode, Chris had felt that she absolutely 

hated the Broughton boy. And yet- 

And yet, during the next few minutes, the 
one thing in the world which she and Pat were 
hoping and praying, living and working, for 
was the life of Mike Broughton. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


FRUITS OF VICTORY 

I T seemed an age to both before there came 
a sigh, a quiver of the eyelids, and Mike 
Broughton turned his head and muttered 

feebly, “Don’t—bother-” 

Chris and Pat had both been too much 
absorbed in their first-aid ministrations to hear 
footsteps approaching; but at that moment a 
voice spoke curtly—a familiar voice, but with 
a strange hoarseness in it: “What’s this? 
What’s this?”—and, looking round, they saw 
Squire Broughton. 

Without a word, they fell back, letting him 
approach his son. He did so, looking at the 
trio, taking in the scene, and the fact that both 
lads were alike dripping. Then he turned upon 
Pat, and spoke gruffly: “Was it my son who 
saved you, or did you save him?” 

220 



FRUITS OF VICTORY 

But it was Mike Broughton who answered 
that question, faintly, haltingly, from where 
he lay: ‘‘Bridge broke—I pitched in, and Gil- 
mour—dived in after me—frightful risk-” 

“Ah!” said Squire Broughton briefly. 
Again, through narrowed eyes, he looked at his 
son’s rescuer. Chris wondered whether he 
noted that Pat was fully dressed, and won¬ 
dered also if he were remembering, as vividly 
as she herself was, what had happened that 
other time he had come upon them at the 
Combe. 

There was a minute’s silence. Then, almost 
brusquely, the Squire again spoke to Pat: 
“Could you get Mike as far as the house?” 

Pat, without answering, stooped and lifted 
Mike Broughton, who was not yet sufficiently 
recovered to walk even with help, in his strong 
young arms. Chris wondered why Squire 
Broughton, strong and hearty as he was, did 
not himself carry his son home; it did not occur 
to her until afterwards that he had hit upon 
the one and only means of inducing Pat to 
pass under the Broughton roof. 

221 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


Fortunately the distance to the house was 
short. On their reaching it, there was great 
commotion among such of the Broughton 
servants as saw the young master return home 
in such a condition, and Mike was borne off 
to his room for care and restoratives, under the 
auspices of a flustered, tearful old lady, pre¬ 
sumably his mother, who was too much over¬ 
come by the accident to inquire into the manner 
of the rescue; but before disappearing he 
stretched out his hand to Pat, and Chris, in¬ 
tercepting the look exchanged by the two boys, 
knew that for them, at all events, the feud was 
over for ever. 

Then Squire Broughton turned to the young 
Gilmours. “Come into my study, you two,” 
he said brusquely. 

But Chris saw Pat stiffen, and knew that, 
now Mike was safe at home, he would not 
linger for another instant in the Broughtons’ 
house. “We can’t wait, not for a moment— 
Pat must get home quick and change his wet 
clothes!” she urged, edging towards the door. 

“Being wet for another two minutes won’t 
222 


FRUITS OF VICTORY 


make any difference to him,” Squire Brough¬ 
ton growled. “You’ll do what I say,” and 
something in his manner impelled them to fol¬ 
low him without another protest. 

Entering his study, he went to a safe which 
stood there, and taking from it a paper which 
looked like a legal document, held it before 
Pat. 

“Do you know what this is?” he asked curtly. 

Chris perceived that Pat had turned sud¬ 
denly white—so white that she started with an 
involuntary, motherly instinct towards him; 
but he answered steadily, “It’s the deed, signed 
by my grandfather, mortgaging Hallowdene.” 

“Exactly!” Squire Broughton snapped. 

He took a quick step to the fireplace, and, 
before either quite realized what he was about 
to do, had torn the deed from top to bottom 
and thrust it down among the flames. 

In tense silence they watched it consume 
away, and not until blackened flakes were all 
that remained did Squire Broughton speak 
again. Then he turned once more to Pat, and 
said with his usual brusqueness, “See here, 
223 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

youngster! I’m not good at thanks or apolo¬ 
gies, and I’m not going to thank you for saving 
my boy’s life at the risk of your own, any more 
than I shall say I’m sorry for the thrashing I 
gave you and the ill-feeling between your fam¬ 
ily and ours; but you may tell your father that 
that deed is burnt, and that he can pay off the 
mortgage in his own way and at his own time, 
and I shall take no further steps in the matter, 
which, as far as I am concerned, is over and 
done with.” His voice altered slightly, and he 
added, laying his hand for a moment on Pat’s 
soaking shoulder, ‘‘You may tell Mr. Gihnour 
also that I pray the day may come when I may 
be as proud of my son as your father should be 
of you.” 

Chris, who well knew that nothing on earth 
would induce Pat to repeat that speech to his 
father, treasured up every word, vowing that 
she would do so herself. “And Uncle Roger 
will jolly well see now,” she reflected almost 
vindictively, “whether Pat’s to be trusted or 
not!” 

They hardly knew how that scene ended, nor 
224 


FRUITS OF VICTORY 

how it was that they got out of the house and 
hurried away. Both were almost dazed by the 
wonder and suddenness of all that had hap¬ 
pened, and neither spoke until they were quite 
halfway home. Then Pat said abruptly, ‘‘Look 
here, Chris! I’m ‘not good at thanks,’ as old 
Broughton said—^but I suppose you know 
you’ve saved my life, and Mike’s; I simply 
couldn’t have pulled us through without your 
help.” 

“Oh—that was nothing!” Chris murmured, 
her cheeks burning. “I only helped to drag 
you out. It was what you did, diving in like 
that, that counted—^you risked your own life.” 

“So did you!” Pat interrupted almost 
brusquely. “D’you mean to say you didn’t 
take big risks—first the risk of jumping on to 
the island, and then the chance of my pulling 
you into the river? You’ve had your share, and 
a jolly big one, in saving Mike Broughton— 
and that means in saving Hallowdene, too.” 

They came, at that moment, to the point at 
which they could get a fuU view' of Hallow- 
dene. 


225 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


The long-desired fine weather had, that day, 
come at last, with the especial fairy-like fresh¬ 
ness of sun after rain, and the farm lay bathed 
in bright sunshine and blossoming in the deli¬ 
cate beauty of early spring. Never had the old 
house looked more lovely—a more splendid, 
glorious old home. 

Involuntarily they both halted for a moment 
to look at it, and Pat drew a deep breath. 

^'Oursr he said. “Ours for good!” 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE TELEPHONE CALL 


O URS for good!” Chris echoed. 
“Though I ought really to say 
‘yours/ not ‘ours/ ” she added, as 
they hurried on and turned in at the home 
gate, “for of course Hallowdene’s got nothing 
to do with 

“Yes, it has, though!” Pat contradicted her 
curtly as they entered the porch. “You know 
jolly well you count as one of 

“Rubbish!” Chris murmured, but she glowed 
all the same. “Hurry up,” she added urgently, 
“and get out of these soaking wet clothes!” 

“But we haven’t told Molly yet!” Pat pro¬ 
tested. 

But Chris was not to be moved. “I don’t 
care what we haven’t done,” she retorted, 
“you’re going to get into dry things first! 
227 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

You don’t want to celebrate with a bad chill or 
something, do you, stupid?” and she fairly 
bundled him up to his room. 

He had hardly gone when she noticed a 
letter on the mantelpiece, and took it up, think¬ 
ing, “Uncle Roger must have been through the 
village and called in for the afternoon post.” 
It was addressed to Pat, and something about 
the official-looking envelope gave her shrewd 
suspicions. 

She flew after him to his room, and tapped 
excitedly. “Letter for you,” she called, “that 
looks as if it might be about your exam.!” and 
slipped the envelope under his door. 

She waited a minute in eager suspense, and 
then heard his voice from within the room, on 
a note of would-be suppressed but irrepressible 
satisfaction. “It’s all right! Passed with 
honours!” 

“Congratulations!” Chris cried delightedly, 
and danced in the corridor until Pat emerged 
from his room in dry clothes, with rumpled 
hair and gleaming eyes, demanding, “Told 
Molly?” 


228 


THE TELEPHONE CALL 

“No! I left it for you to do.” 

“Oh, but go on—^you tell her!” 

“No, you —I’d rather you did.” 

They hung fire on it for a moment, each 
generously trying to give the supreme delight 
of “telling Molly” to the other; but for once 
it was Chris who won. 

“Go on!” she insisted, ^ving Pat a push. 
“I simply won’t. It’s up to you to tell her 
about Hallowdene being all right—of course 
it is—^because it’s your home, not mine, and 
you’re her own family and I’m not.” 

Pat needed no further bidding. They found 
Molly in the dear old farm kitchen (from 
which, now that she could move about again, 
even on temporary crutches, it was no longer 
possible to keep her away), and Chris waited 
only to assure herself that Mrs. Ridd was not 
there and so need not be banished, and then, 
obeying a quixotic impulse, shut the door on 
Pat’s “I say, old girl, something big has hap¬ 
pened!” and left him and Molly to have it out 
together. 


229 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


‘T should simply love to stop and hear what 
Molly says, but I won’t—not now,” she 
thought. “Hallowdene means more to them 
than it can to me, and they ought to be all by 
themselves while Pat tells her it’s all right.” 

She slipped back to the hall and waited there. 
‘Tt’s all right!” she repeated to herself. ‘‘This 
lovely, glorious old place belongs to the Gil- 
mours for ever—and Pat says I’ve helped to 
save it. Oh, it’s all perfect—perfect!” 

She looked appreciatively round the old 
panelled hall—and in so doing her glance hap¬ 
pened to fall on the half-closed frame which 
stood on the carved stone mantel. 

The girl’s eager, glowing face clouded, and a 
shadow seemed to fall across her happiness. 
No! it was not perfect, she remembered—not 
even now; thanks to cruel Fate, it could never 
be that; for although Hallowdene was safe, 
he who loved it best of all would never come 
home. 

It seemed strange to her afterwards, looking 
back on that moment which, as it turned out, 
was to be burnt into her mind in its minutest 
230 


THE TELEPHONE CALL 


detail, that she should have been so thinking 
just then. 

“But it’s all as Clive would have wished, 
anyhow,” she thought. “It’s as though Hal- 
lowdene—the old home he loved so—were a 
memorial of him; the best he could have had.” 

She was so thinking when her thoughts were 
interrupted by the whirring jangle of the tele¬ 
phone bell. 

She waited a moment to see if Pat were 
coming, and then, as he did not, went to answer 
the call—“for it’s probably only some one ask¬ 
ing for Uncle Roger, and I can just say he’s 
out,” she thought. “I don’t want to disturb 
Pat and Molly if I can help it.” 

“Hallo,” she said, taking up the receiver— 
“hallo!” 

“Hallo!” a masculine voice came back. “Is 
that Hallowdene Farm?” 

“Yes,” Chris answered, concluding that a 
friend of the Gilmours must be ringing up as 
she heard the question, “I say, is that Molly 
speaking?” 

“No, I’m not Molly,” she answered, “I’m 
231 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
her cousin, Christabel Gilmour, and staying 
with her.” 

She started, because over the telephone had 
come the echo of a slight, quaintly infectious 
laugh, most curiously like Pat’s. “Sorry!” said 
the voice of the unseen speaker pleasantly. 
“I thought I was speaking to one of the family. 
I didn’t know you were coming to stay with 
us. Cousin Chris.” 

A wild, weird suspicion of an almost impos¬ 
sible possibility flashed into Chris’s mind; she 
tried to dismiss it instantly, but it left her heart 
beating hard. But who was he—^who could he 
possibly be—^this, to her, entire stranger, who 
yet spoke of the Gilmours as “the family” and 
“us,” and to herself as “Cousin Chris”? 

“I should like to speak to Father, please,” 
the unknown went on, “if he’s at home. Fm 
Clive, you know -" 

The world seemed to Chris to have become 
suddenly and absolutely unreal. The only 
reason she did not cry out nor drop the receiver 
was, that she was too completely petrified for 
sound or movement. It was only quite me- 
232 



THE TELEPHONE CALL 


chanically, like some automaton deprived of 
all volition, that she held on to the telephone 
and continued to listen. 

‘T only wanted to say,” the clear, boyish 
voice was saying over the wires, ‘‘that I hope 
none of the family are beheving any silly yarn 
about my being drowned—but IVe just 
learned that my ship was reported ‘missing 
with all hands,’ so I thought I’d better make 
sure-” 



CHAPTER XXVI 


OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 

Hallowdene Farm, 

Earthly Paradise !!!!!! 

April 3, 1921. 

“Dear Gypsy^ —^You observe my change of 
address? But it doesn’t mean that I’ve left 
Torfell Combe, only that Torfell Combe has 
been changed into—what I’ve just written— 
or else into Fairyland, I’m not sure which! 
It looks particularly fairyish at the moment, 
because I’m writing to you sitting right up in 
the boughs of an old pear tree in full blossom, 
and the sun is shimmering through the white 
petals and turning my perch into a bower for 
Titania—but that isn’t why I say it’s Earthly 
Paradise; it’s because I don’t see how any 
place hut a sort of Arcadia could be such a 
234 


OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 

superbly, gloriously happy one to live in as 
this is now! 

“A bit of a contrast—what?—^to the dismal, 
grumbly letter I wrote you last time I But you 
see, since I wrote that, everything has suddenly 
come right—so wonderfully, marvellously 
right that I feel sometimes as if it simply 
couldn’t be true! You love thrills. Gyp, but 
all the same you could never, never be prepared 
for such a thrill as I’m going to give you, 
because all the stories we’ve ever made up 
together, if they all came real at once, simply 
wouldn’t touch what has really happened. Oh, 
Gypsy, Clivers come backlll 
“You remember, don’t you, that there was 
a grown-up cousin, Clive, who was supposed 
to have been drowned? But oh, Gypsy, he 
wasn’t drowned after all! His ship went down 
and was reported 'missing with all hands,’ but 
Clive was picked up—^the only survivor—by 
another ship, and taken on to Canada. From 
there he wrote home that he was all right, and 
then stayed to do the business he had gone out 
for; but somehow that letter went astray, so 
235 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


of course his family thought he had been 
drowned with the others. He only got back 
to England yesterday (purposely not having 
written that he was coming, so as to take his 
people by surprise), and hearing the report of 
the lost ship, and putting that together with 
the queer fact of not having heard from his 
family although he’d told them where to write, 
thought he’d better ring them up on the tele¬ 
phone, quick, and make inquiries, to make sure, 
as he said, that nobody was ‘believing any silly 
yarn about his being drowned’; and oh. Gyp, 
it was I —I who took the message! I went to 
the receiver expecting some perfectly ordinary 
call, and heard a young man’s voice, awfully 
like Pat’s, saying over the telephone, 

Clivej yon know ^!!!!!! 

‘T hardly know what I did—I felt as if 
either I had gone mad, or everything else had; 
and I think we pretty nearly did go mad, the 
whole lot of us together, when I rushed in on 
Pat and Molly, who were together in the 
kitchen, and told them! I don’t know exactly 
how things went after that; I only remember 
236 


OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 
Pat rushing to the telephone and getting Clive 
on again (Clive, who we’d all thought dead!), 
with Molly sobbing at his shoulder, ‘Let me 
come—oh, let me come!’ though she was crying 
too much to manage the telephone properly 
when he did let her, and couldn’t say anything 
but ‘Oh, Clive—oh, Clive!’—and Uncle Roger 
happening to come in and having to be told, 
I hardly know how—and in the middle of it all, 
just too late (which is so exactly what would 
have happened!), the long-delayed letter to say 
Clive was all right suddenly turning up—and 
our all breaking down. Uncle and all, and be¬ 
having like kids—and a perfectly crazy scene 
that I can’t write any more about, only it was 
worth living for! 

“Clive’s home now. He’s a most awfully 
satisfactory person! Not Pat’s style—not half 
the brains, I should say—but exactly hke 
Molly; a masculine edition of! That’s to say, 
awfully good-looking and cheery and pleasant, 
in such a nice simple sort of way, and the most 
likeable boy possible; at least, next to Pat, for 
237 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 
I shall never like any other boy as much as 
I like him! 

“And the point is, now that Clive’s home— 
that this is his home, for good! Gypsy, I shall 
simply never get through this letter, there’s so 
much to tell you—and the fact of Clive being 
all right after all is so supreme that it’s put all 
other news in the shade and made me begin 
at the wrong end of the story. But anyhow, 
another vital bit of news is, that Hallowdene, 
which came horribly near having to be handed 
over to the Broughtons, in spite of all Uncle 
Roger could do, is safe, and the mortgage will 
never be foreclosed, and the dear old farm 
will belong to the Gilmours for evermore. 

“It was Pat who saved the situation; and 
how do you think? Not by doing any of the 
stupidly melodramatic things you and I were 
idiotic enough to fancy, for his ‘secret’ turned 
out to be simply and solely that he was trying 
for an exam.; but all the same you needn’t 
be disappointed in your ‘novel-hero,’ for what 
he did do was every bit as fine as anything we 
thought of, and just as exciting. He saved 
238 


OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 


IMike Broughton’s life at the risk of his own, 
by diving into a wild, flooded river just above 
the falls (close to the very place where they 
fought, and where the Squire thrashed Pat), 
to rescue him from drowning; and afterwards, 
out of gratitude, Squire Broughton burnt the 
mortgage-deed and gave up his claim on Hal- 
lowdene! There—I hope that’s storyfied 
enough to satisfy even you\ and I feel I have 
had quite a big share in it, for I helped to pull 
the boys out of the river (from the very island 
Mike Broughton imprisoned me on), so it’s 
partly through me too that it’s all come right 
and Hallowdene is ours. I mean ‘ours,’ not 
‘theirs,’ for I feel, somehow, as if I belonged 
thoroughly, not merely as a cousin, to the fam¬ 
ily and to Hallowdene, and dear old Pat says 
Ido. 

“I shall be staying here, too, for quite a good 
while longer, for although I’m really perfectly 
fit again, Pat and Molly and Clive all want 
me to spend the rest of the spring and summer 
here with them, and I simply will, if I have to 
do some malingering to ‘wangle extension of 
239 


SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


leave’—I’m quoting Clive! So when Father 
gets his holidays, he and Mother will come and 
spend them at Hallowdene—Uncle Roger has 
asked them—and, Gyp, couldn’t you possibly 
persuade your people to come to this neigh¬ 
bourhood in the summer holidays? I know of 
an awfully jolly place, ‘Torfell Farm,’ where 
you could get rooms. Oh, Gyp, do fix it some¬ 
how! To have you here, as well as Pat and the 
others, would be too jolly for words, and I 
know you would simply love this country, and 
we’d have such a splendid time, all of us to¬ 
gether; and after all I’ve told you, you must 
want to see Hallowdene and to know the Gil- 
mour family. More of this anon! 

“So, you see, there seems to be a pluperfect 
summer in store for me anyhow—and after 
that, who knows? It doesn’t do to look too far 
ahead, does it? But I suppose I shall come 
back to good old Wyngarth for the autumn 
term; and now Clive’s home again, so that he 
can be spared, and money matters aren’t so 
pressing, Pat will go back to Rugby, and after- 
240 


OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 

wards be able to go up to Cambridge and do 
all he wanted to do. 

“Meantime, we’re all living in a state of 
glorification over Clive’s homecoming; and Pat 
goes about whistling and singing, and looks 
and seems like the boy he really is, instead of 
the man-before-his-time he would pretty soon 
have become, I’m afraid, if things hadn’t 
turned out as they have; there’s no ‘old head 
on young shoulders’ about Pat now—witness 
how he rags Molly! 

“Oh, Gypsy! I’m happy !—Tmhappy - 

Chris’s flying pencil stopped at that point, 
at sound of a familiar step and lively whistle; 
and, peeping down from her nest, she saw Pat 
crossing the garden. “Coo-ee!” she called to 
him. “Come up, Pat—^there’s room for two!” 

One of the many pages of her letter fluttered 
to earth as she bent forward, and as Pat picked 
it up and swung himself up into the tree, his 
glance fell on the words, “Hallowdene Farm, 
Earthly Paradise !!!!!!” 

“Hallo!” he said, pointing to them and 
241 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 

laughing, as he seated himself on the branch 
beside Chris. 

Chris smiled up at him. “Well, that’s how 
I feel!” she said. “Don’t youV^ 

Pat nodded. “It’s—pretty good—isn’t it?” 
he said. 

He slightly parted the branches, and they 
looked out together, through their screen of 
blossom, at the sunny spring garden and 
glorious old farmhouse, where through an open 
casement they could hear Molly singing. 

“Oh, it is good!” Chris sighed happily, “and 
what makes me more glad than anything, next 
to Clive coming back, is that you think I’ve 
had some share after all, in the end, in making 
things come right.” 

Pat stared at her. “Why, of course you 
have!” he retorted. “But you had, all the time, 
Chris. How do you mean—‘in the end’?” 

“Why, in the beginning I was simply 
idiotic,” Chris declared humbly. “Look at the 
muddles I’ve been making all the time!” 

“But you haven’t, old thing!” Pat declared 
hotly. “I remember your saying that before, 
242 


OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 


just before the river accident, but I told you at 
the time it wasn’t my notion. Why, look here, 
Chris! The very first day you were here, didn’t 
you go off alone, through the snow, and risk 
getting lost in it, to get help for Molly?—and 
when you shut me up in the shed, it was only 
because you thought I was a tramp—it would 
have been a jolly sound scheme if I had been; 
and even that ghastly business of the lambs 
only happened because you were trying to be 
jolly decent to me and make me rest; and your 
going to old Drake, and all that, was because 
you were trying to help me out of a scrape; 
and you’ve worked like a nigger, so that I’ve 
often felt we simply oughtn’t to let you do it, 
trying to take Molly’s place, and she says her¬ 
self it’s wonderful how you’ve done it—there I 
To say nothing of saving my unworthy carcass, 
and Mike Broughton’s too, which meant help¬ 
ing to save Hallowdene-” 

“Don’t! Don’t!” Chris murmured chokily, 
but her tone meant a rapturous “Do! Do!” 

“And it isn’t only what you’ve done either,” 
Pat continued. “It’s the way you’ve stuck to 
243 



SECRET OF HALLOWDENE FARM 


me, and bucked me up, and helped me to carry 


He stopped abruptly, flushing and hesi¬ 
tating. “L—look here, Chris,’’ he blurted out, 
“of course everything’s all right now, and 
there’s nothing more for us to help each other 
through with, but—that isn’t going to make 
any difference between us, is it? I mean, we’ll 
go on—you know—^being pals—always—all 
our lives.” 

Chris nodded, her eyes shining. “Rather I” 
she said. “We’ll carry on with that/^ 

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Books With Delightful Young Heroines 


THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL 

By Eleanor Gates 

This famous story Is full of fancy and beauty. It tells how little 
Gwendolyn found the childhood happiness that she was denied as a 
rich little girl. 

GEORGINA OF THE RAINBOWS 

By Annie Fellows Johnston 

Georgina is a delicate-minded, inquisitive child who has amusing fancies 
and a delightful way with grownups. 

GEORGINA’S SERVICE STARS 

By Annie Fellows Johnston 

The girlhood of Georgina, when boarding school, dances, and romance 
among her girl friends, culminate in her own pretty story. 

EMMY LOU’S ROAD TO GRACE 

By George Madden Martin 

Emmy Lou might forget her prayers, spread whooping-cough, attend 
the circus instead of the Sunday School picnic, yet she remained a child 
who goes straight to the reader’s heart. 


MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN 

By Frances R. Sterrett 

What Mary Rose found in the way of nice folks when she came to 
live in the stiff and formal city apartment house. 

MARY-’GUSTA 

By Joseph C. Lincoln 

A humorous and human story of a little girl who mothers her two Cape 
Cod guardians, a bachelor and a widower, in spite of all their attempts 
to bring her up. 

These Are Appleton Books 






















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